COVID-19; extremely preterm; neonatal intensive care unit admission; observational study; pandemic; randomized clinical trial; Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
Abstract :
[en] Objective: To evaluate if the number of admitted extremely preterm (EP) infants (born before 28 weeks of gestational age) differed in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) of the SafeBoosC-III consortium during the global lockdown when compared to the corresponding time period in 2019. Design: This is a retrospective, observational study. Forty-six out of 79 NICUs (58%) from 17 countries participated. Principal investigators were asked to report the following information: (1) Total number of EP infant admissions to their NICU in the 3 months where the lockdown restrictions were most rigorous during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) Similar EP infant admissions in the corresponding 3 months of 2019, (3) the level of local restrictions during the lockdown period, and (4) the local impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the everyday life of a pregnant woman. Results: The number of EP infant admissions during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was 428 compared to 457 in the corresponding 3 months in 2019 (-6.6%, 95% CI -18.2 to +7.1%, p = 0.33). There were no statistically significant differences within individual geographic regions and no significant association between the level of lockdown restrictions and difference in the number of EP infant admissions. A post-hoc analysis based on data from the 46 NICUs found a decrease of 10.3%in the total number of NICU admissions (n = 7,499 in 2020 vs. n = 8,362 in 2019). Conclusion: This ad hoc study did not confirm previous reports of a major reduction in the number of extremely pretermbirths during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrial.gov, identifier: NCT04527601 (registered August 26, 2020), https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04527601.
Disciplines :
Pediatrics
Author, co-author :
Rasmussen, Marie Isabel; Department of Neonatology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
Hansen, Mathias Lühr; Department of Neonatology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
Pichler, Gerhard; Department of Pediatrics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria
Dempsey, Eugene; Infant Centre and Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Pellicer, Adelina; Department of Neonatology, La Paz University Hospital, Madrid, Spain
El-Khuffash, Afif; Department of Pediatrics, The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
A, Shashidhar; St. Johns Medical College Hospital, Bengaluru, India
Piris-Borregas, Salvador; Department of Neonatology, 12 Octubre University Hospital, Madrid, Spain
Cetinkaya, Merih; Department of Neonatology, Kanuni Sultan Suleyman Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
Chalak, Lina; Division of Pediatrics - Neonatal-Perinatal, University of Texas (UT) Southwestern, Dallas, TX, United States
Özkan, Hilal; Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, Uludag University Medical Faculty, Uludag, Turkey
Baserga, Mariana; Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Sirc, Jan; Third Faculty of Medicine, Institute for the Care of the Mother and Child, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
Fuchs, Hans; Center for Pediatrics, Department of Neonatology, Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Ergenekon, Ebru; Department of Neonatology, Gazi University Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
Arruza, Luis; Division of Neonatology, Instituto del Niño y del Adolescente, Hospital Clinico San Carlos-Health Research Institute San Carlos (IdISSC), Madrid, Spain
Mathur, Amit; Department of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States
Stocker, Martin; Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Children's Hospital Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland
Otero Vaccarello, Olalla; Department of Neonatology, Hospital Universitario de Tarragona Juan XXIII, Tarragona, Spain
Szczapa, Tomasz; Department of Neonatology, Neonatal Biophysical Monitoring and Cardiopulmonary Therapies Research Unit, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznań, Poland
Sarafidis, Kosmas; First Department of Neonatology, Aristotle University, Hippokrateion General Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece
Królak-Olejnik, Barbara; Department of Neonatology, Wrocław Medical University, Wrocław, Poland
Memisoglu, Asli; Department of Neonatology, Marmara University Pendik Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey
Reigstad, Hallvard; Department of Neonatology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
Rafińska-Ważny, Elżbieta; Department of Neonatology, Centrum Medyczne "Ujastek", Krakow, Poland
Hatzidaki, Eleftheria; Department of Neonatology and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Peng, Zhang; Department of Neonatology, Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Gkentzi, Despoina; Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Department of Pediatrics, Patras Medical School, Patras, Greece
Viellevoye, Renaud ; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège - CHU > > Service néonatologie (CHR)
De Buyst, Julie; Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Tivoli Hospital, La Louviere, Belgium
Mastretta, Emmanuele; S.C. Neonatologia - Pres Osp S. Anna - Citta della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, Torino, Italy
Wang, Ping; Department of Neonatology, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Guangzhou, China
Hahn, Gitte Holst; Department of Neonatology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
Bender, Lars; Department of Neonatology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark
Cornette, Luc; Department of Neonatology, AZ St-Jan Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Tkaczyk, Jakub; Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Motol, Prague, Czechia
Del Rio, Ruth; Department of Neonatology, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Barcelona, Spain
Fumagalli, Monica; Department of Neonatology, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico Milan, Milan, Italy ; Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Papathoma, Evangelia; Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, "Alexandra" University and State Maternity Hospital, Athens, Greece
Wilinska, Maria; Neonatology Department, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw, Poland
Naulaers, Gunnar; Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Sadowska-Krawczenko, Iwona; Department of Neonatology, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Lecart, Chantal; Department of Neonatology, Grand Hôpital de Charleroi (GHdC), Charleroi, Belgium
Couce, María Luz; Neonatology Department, University Clinical Hospital of Santiago de Compostela, Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago, Spain
Fredly, Siv; Department of Neonatology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
Heuchan, Anne Marie; Department of Neonatology, Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Karen, Tanja; Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Greisen, Gorm; Department of Neonatology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
The sponsor/coordinating investigator, Professor of Paediatrics GG, is the initiator of the SafeBoosC-III project. He has no financial interest in the results of the trial. The Elsass Foundation, Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation, and Svend Andersen Foundation supported the SafeBoosC-III trial through unconditional and unrestricted grants of DKK 3,300,000, DKK 1,000,000 and DKK 1,000,000, respectively. These funding sources had no role in the design of this study and will not have any role during its execution, analysis, interpretation of the data or decision to submit results.
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