ArticleThe journal of obstetrics and gynaecology research2025
Birth and pregnancy numbers decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: A time series analysis with the ARIMA model.
Article in The journal of obstetrics and gynaecology research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Age-specific impact of COVID-19 on birth rates in Japan: An interrupted time-series analysis using national vital statistics.PloS one · 2026Article
- Birth and pregnancy numbers decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: A time series analysis with the ARIMA model.The journal of obstetrics and gynaecology research · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimThe long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on birth and pregnancy trends in Japan remain unclear. Although major sporting events are usually followed by an increase in births 9 months later, Japan's fifth wave of COVID-19 occurred during the Olympics held in Japan during the summer of 2021. In this study, we analyzed how the number of births and pregnancies changed during the COVID-19 pandemic and large-scale events in Japan.
methodsWe utilized monthly vital statistical data from birth certificates spanning the years 2010 to 2022. Our analysis followed the identification, estimation, and forecasting stages of autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling. We found the ARIMA (1, 12, 12) model to be adequate for forecasting the monthly number of births.
resultsComparing actual birth data from 2020 to 2022 with our forecast, we observed a significant decrease in births across all of Japan, urban residential areas, and 13 prefectures-primarily metropolitan regions-in January 2021 and May 2022. We also observed a decrease in pregnancy notifications in May 2020, May 2021, and October 2021. The decrease in births in May 2022 in Japan aligns with the decrease in pregnancy notifications 8 months earlier in October 2021.
conclusionsAlthough major sporting events are expected to lead to an increase in the number of births approximately 9 months later, the number of births decreased in May 2022 during the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. These findings suggest that the number of pregnancies and births should be monitored in future pandemics with particular attention to fertility trends.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.