comparison of the pregnancy outcomes and health indicators of newborns before and after the pandemic of covid-19 in iran

Background: covid-19 originated from china and causes pneumonia and respiratory, digestive and many other symptoms. the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes may increase in pregnant women infected with this virus. objectives: this study aimed to compare the pregnancy outcomes and health indicators of newborn born in two periods before (the first 6 months of 2019) and after (the first 6 months of 2020) the covid-19.methods: in this cross-sectional study, 2303 newborns were studied. of these, 1195 were born in the first 6 months of 2019 and 1108 were born in the first 6 months of 2020. the data collection tool was a checklist that was extracted from the integrated health system (sib) of the iranian ministry of health. the spss26 was used for data analysis.results: the newborns born in these two periods before and after covid-19 pandemic had no statistically significant differences in terms of maternal age, gestational age, birth weight, height and head circumference at birth (p-value>0.05). there was no statistically significant difference in terms of gender, stillbirth and twins or multiples variables in the two time periods before and after covid19 (p-value>0.05). cesarean section rate after the covid19 pandemic in the first 6 months of 2020 (60.8 %) was higher than before pandemic in the first 6 months of 2019 (56.7 %) (p-value<0.05). in addition, the birth rate in rural areas after the covid-19 pandemic was higher than before pandemic (p-value=0.005).conclusion: caesarean section rate after the covid-19 pandemic has increased significantly compared to before