Has Lockdown Impacted Child Neuro Development?

Lockdown. Endless months of being trapped at home behind bars that were supposedly protecting us from the deadliest pathogen to our generation. Endless months of not exposing yourself to social situations. Endless months of not exposing yourself to the 'real world'. Instead we were glued to our rooms and that became the 'new norm', the new environment that we had to adjust to - physically and mentally.

As lockdown lead to such a vast change in the environment (that we spent most of our time in), it made me think that this sudden change, surely, must have had a damaging impact on the lives of children born during the years of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

It's a known fact that the first few years of a child's life are incredibly important for learning skills and compassion, however were the babies of 2020-21 deprived of this?

We have all learnt (back in KS3) about adaptations and how our bodies adjust in order to suit the environment in which we live in in order to provide ourselves with optimum survival advantages blah blah blah. However, what we sometimes do not notice is how these 'adaptations' are not only physical, but also neurological and they are not only positive to our lives, but can also be negative.

The reason to why I was interested in reading articles about the impact lockdown would have had on babies born in (or grew up during) lockdown arose due to the impact I had seen lockdown had on myself. It has fascinated me as to whether these minor changes in the environment that these babies were born into, or grew up in, may change the way in which this generation behave and grow.

An article that I read on "www.nature.com" stated that: Paediatrician Dani Dumitriu had run a study in New York City where she compared communication and motor skills of babies up to six months old from data they collected before the pandemic and during the pandemic. Overall, she concluded that "infants born during the pandemic scored lower on tests of gross motor, fine motor and communication skills than those born before". Some may raise the questions whether these lower test scores may have been influenced due to other factors and not just the environment that lockdown formed, however Dumitriu states, "It didn’t matter whether their birth parent had been infected with the virus or not; there seemed to be something about the environment of the pandemic itself.”

Consequently, it is clear that the lockdown has had a negative impact on the neurological development of a child's brain and researchers have found that the longer the pandemic continued, the more deficits children accumulated. But why? The answer is still unknown as it could be one of many factors. For example, some suspect that this was provoked from the lack of human interactions (which is vital in early years) and others say that young ones are missing out on opportunities to get gross motor practise, as they weren't allowed to use playgrounds (and similar facilities) for a long time.

Another suspicion is based on stress during pregnancy that could be related to making 'the Covid generation' slightly more deprived in abilities. Preliminary research has suggested that if the mother experienced any pandemic-related stress during pregnancy, then this could have a negative impact on the fetal brain development of some. From MRI scans of the brains of 75 babies (3months after birth), researchers were able to conclude that mothers who experienced more prenatal distress (anxiety/depression symptoms- which was statistically proven to have increased in numbers during lockdown), had given birth to babies that showed different structural connections between their amygdala and their prefrontal cortex. (*amygdala: region of the brain involved in emotional processing. *prefrontal cortex: region of the brain responsible for executive functioning skills).

Furthermore, these differences in brain connectivity were suggested, in a small study, to have correlated in aggressive and hyperactive behaviour in preschool ages of boys, in particular.

In conclusion, all of these studies and the evidence that has been collected highlight the fact that we must make use of the freedom we have at the moment- to be able to take our children out and allow them to socialise, rather than falling for the deceiving comfort of our rooms again. This is because if we leave it too late, we may end up with an entire generation full of children who are developing key motor and communication skills slower than ever before, and is that what we want?

How significantly will these minor changes in the brain impact the future interactions and behaviour of 'the Covid generation' when they become adults and have to make the decision for our world?

Moreover, will this change in brain connectivity become an adaptation that is passed on to the next generations and become the norm?

If so, what will that mean for society?