ReviewPreventive medicine reports2026
Maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and child neurodevelopmental outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.
Review in Preventive medicine reports, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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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.
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To assess: (a) associations between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure and early childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes, and (b) whether these varied by infection trimester. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies modelling the neurodevelopmental outcomes of children prenatally exposed to SARS-CoV-2 compared to unexposed children. PubMed and PsychInfo were systematically searched from inception to March 2025. Primary analysis was random-effects modelling of overall associations. Secondary analysis assessed variation by trimester via standardised mean differences (SMD). Results: 11 observational studies were included. Overall, there was no statistically significant association between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure and early childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes, both before (odds ratio: 1.08; 95% confidence intervals: 0.82, 1.42) and after (odds ratio: 0.98; 95% CI: 0.81, 1.17) excluding high variance studies. First trimester prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure was associated with poorer neurodevelopmental scores (3.87; 95% CI: 3.19, 4.55) than prenatal exposure in the second trimester (6.07; 95% CI: 5.11, 7.03) or third trimester (6.31; 95% CI: 5.54, 7.09). However, this analysis was limited to three studies only, with high heterogeneity between studies. Conclusions: Prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure is not associated with early childhood neurodevelopmental outcomes. Future research should keep monitoring associations as more data becomes available. More robust research is required on trimester-specific associations.
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Registered trials
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