Nursery World - Lockdown Babies: Weighing up the impact on children's health

It has been four years since the Covid-19 pandemic began to change the world. In the first of this series on its legacy, Jo Parkes looks at its impact on children’s health

Playgrounds were shut in the first lockdown, nurseries closed, many parents were cut off from services ILLUSTRATION Laura Wood

An estimated 200,000 babies were born between 23 March and 14 July 2020, during the first lockdown.

These infants joined an accidental social experiment created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Their first 1,001 critical days were to be shaped by an absence of in-person contact beyond immediate family. Children who started Reception last September would have been aged one to two in the first lockdown, and many two-, three- and four-year-olds in nursery currently will have been born in lockdown, with restrictions on social contact only finally easing in July 2021.

Around 110,000 women in London are believed to have given birth without a partner’s support in 2020. Some women reportedly opted for a caesarean to ensuretheir partner was able to be present.

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