Are COVID-19 mitigation measures reducing preterm birth rate in China?

Abstract

Objective Preterm birth is the leading cause of child morbidity and mortality globally. We aimed to determine the impact of the COVID-19 mitigation measures implemented in China on 23 January 2020 on the incidence of preterm birth in our institution.Design Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the association between the national COVID-19 mitigation measures implemented in China and the incidence of preterm birth.Setting Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital, Shanghai China.Participants All singleton deliveries abstracted from electronic medical record between 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020.Main outcome measures Preterm birth rate.Results Data on 164 107 singleton deliveries were available. COVID-19 mitigation measures were consistently associated with significant reductions in preterm birth in the 2-month, 3-month, 4-month, 5-month time windows after implementation (+2 months, OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.94; +3 months, OR 0.83, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.94; +4 months, OR 0.82, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.92; +5 months, OR 0.84, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.93). These reductions in preterm birth were obvious across various degrees of prematurity, but were statistically significant only in moderate-to-late preterm birth (32 complete weeks to 36 weeks and 6 days) subgroup. The preterm birth difference disappeared gradually after various restrictions were removed (7th–12th month of 2020, OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.11). There was no difference in stillbirth rate across the study time window.Conclusion Substantial decreases in preterm birth rates were observed following implementation of the national COVID-19 mitigation measures in China. Further study is warranted to explore the underlying mechanisms associated with this observation.