Parenting lockdown babies was ‘lonely’ but it helped to form a ‘strong bond’ with infant, study finds

A new study on 354 infants born between March and May 2020 examined the parenting of infants who arrived into the world at the onset of the pandemic.

At the age of six months, it was found that the average number of people who had kissed the baby, including the child’s parents, was three.

Senior author, Dr Susan Byrne, said she was particularly struck by the statistic that a quarter of the infants studied didn’t meet a child their own age until after they turned one.

The study, carried out by the Royal College of Surgeons and Children’s Health Ireland, asked parents to write down words to describe raising a baby during the pandemic.

Nearly half the parents, or 44pc, used the word “lonely” while around a third called their experience “isolating”. Other prominent negative words reported included “worrying”, which was reported by 15pc of parents and "challenging" which was used by 14pc.

On a more positive note, “strong bond” was used by 15pc while other common positive words used by parents to describe caring for their babies during the early pandemic months were “time with family” along with “calm/peaceful”.

The study reported that 12 of the babies had Covid-19 in their first year of life but there was no significant difference in reported negative or positive words used by parents compared with parents of babies without a Covid-19 infection, or by first-time parents or those who already had children.

Dr Byrne, a senior lecturer at the FutureNeuro centre at the Department of Paediatrics at the Royal College of Surgeons, said the work was part of the CORAL study headed by Professor Jonathan Hourihane.

“This study looks at allergy, immune function and child-development in over 350 babies born during the pandemic,” she said..

“As part of the 12-month assessment, we wanted to understand how parents involved in the study felt about parenting during the pandemic.

“Overall, the reports were of loneliness and isolation.

"However, many parents also reported positive experiences of a strong bond and family time.”

The consultant paediatric neurologist said she was interested to see that families had really small social circles when the babies were born.

“(They were) only meeting one person on average outside the home around that time.

“While we didn’t have pre-pandemic groups of children to compare this to, we all know that before the pandemic it was very common for parents to meet other parents with children of similar ages through social groups, as well as grandparents, friends and neighbours.”

The study, which has just been published in the BMJ Paediatrics Open Journal, concluded that lockdowns and social restrictions made raising an infant challenging for all parents in Ireland.

“I think it will help parents to see that the feelings they had were shared with other parents,” Dr Byrne said.

She said the overall aim of the study, which she carried out alongside Professor Hourihane and medical student Hailey Sledge, examined allergies in infants.

“To date, the CORAL study has shown that infection rates were lower and breastfeeding rates were higher at six months old and that babies born during the lockdown had higher rates of  atopic dermatitis  at a year of age.

“As a neurologist, I am especially interested to see whether the developmental milestones in this group of babies is different to babies that were born before the pandemic.

"We are currently analysing this data,” she said.