Publication date: Jun 29, 2026
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare service utilisation, but evidence on its impact on perinatal outcomes is conflicting. We investigated the impact of the pandemic public health measures (eg, lockdowns, reduced healthcare access, altered health-seeking behaviour) on preterm birth (PTB), stillbirth, low birth weight (LBW), small for gestational age, caesarean delivery, breastfeeding initiation (BFI) and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions. Using linked administrative health databases, we conducted a population-based study of pregnancies before (January 2008-February 2020) or during (March 2020-March 2022) the pandemic; for the latter period, they were categorised by exposure duration. We conducted interrupted time series analyses using season-adjusted generalised linear models, and analyses were stratified by income. Among 222 636 pregnancies (190 694 prepandemic and 31 942 during pandemic), PTB rates increased from 8% prepandemic to 9. 1% during the pandemic, with a 19. 0% relative increase overall (p
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Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | MESH | preterm birth |
| disease | MESH | stillbirth |