COVID-19: Study Reveals Women are Thinking Twice Before Having a Baby

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posted on 3 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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The research, which was published in the 'JAMA Network Open' journal, reveals that fewer women were planning to become pregnant

A research was recently conducted to study the changes in pregnancy intentions among women, who were mothers of young children, around the peak of the first wave of COVID-19 in New York City. The result of this study suggests that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced women to rethink their family planning. The research reveals that fewer women were planning or attempting to become pregnant; hence, it may have long-term effects on fertility rates. These findings were published in the JAMA Network Open journal.

The study stated that nearly half of the New York City mothers, who were attempting to become pregnant again before the pandemic, had stopped trying in the first few months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The survey, which was led by researchers of NYU Grossman School of Medicine, also found that one-third of women who had been thinking about becoming pregnant before the pandemic, but had not yet started, were no longer considering getting pregnant. The survey covered 1,179 mothers in New York City. The lead author of the study and epidemiologist Linda Kahn stated that the initial COVID-19 outbreak appears to have affected women’s thinking about expanding their families. She said that women have also started considering the number of children they ultimately plan to have.

Kahn, who is an assistant professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health at NYU Langone Health, said that all of the women in the study had at least one child aged 3 or younger. Therefore, she believes, it is possible that the challenges of caring for a young child during the peak of New York City’s COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown could have played a crucial role in their hesitancy to have another baby.

Early evidence has already pointed out at a birthrate decline in the United States during the Coronavirus pandemic. A recent data showcased that the country saw roughly 300,000 fewer births in 2020 than what the experts had expected based on the country’s annual fertility trends.

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