Babies Born Preterm Decreased slightly and stillborn rates unchanged during first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns. Babies born preterm decreased and stillborn rates remained unchanged during the first four months of COVID-19 lockdowns, according to a large-scale international study. The research of 52 million births from 26 countries, published in Nature Human Behavior, reported a 3-4 per cent reduction overall in preterm births, averting almost 50,000 preterm pregnancies during the first month of lockdown alone. But the decrease in preterm births was limited to only high-income countries including Australia. The International Perinatal Outcomes in the Pandemic (iPOP) Study, one of the

Stillborn and preterm statistics for Covid-19 first wave as seen on The Hippocratic Post.