- there's some evidence that healthcare in general can benefit from deliberate less intervention by patients and medical staff [0]
- maternity intervention is notorious for intervention (historically for good reasons) yet, today, so much extra can be profited by just pre-planning interventions that are distorting incentives [1]
- pandemic has raised the stakes of leaving home, particularly visiting hospitals so people think twice before deciding to go for intervention - patients preserveer more. That includes expecting mothers.
[0] this an opinion https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/19/patien...
[1] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/too-much-too-soon-address...
Also, I couldn't find reference in the article where they describe that data as being excluded..
"By staying home, some pregnant women may have experienced less stress from work and commuting, gotten more sleep and received more support from their families, the researchers said."
I am not saying air pollution should be dismissed as a factor, but the elephant in the room is that the stress levels experienced in a _lot_ of workplaces are not compatible with pregnancy.
It is also unfair to expect someone to just be 'equally performing' in the workplace during pregnancy.
From an evolutionary standpoint high stress levels are created by threats, if there are threats you are better off (from an evolutionary standpoint) suffering a miscarriage or early pregnancy since you would more likely be alive to try another pregnancy later when the external conditions present no threats.
A good piece of general evidence I once heard against this is: premature births & miscarriages did not increase in London during The Blitz (I think they may have even reduced). There's a big narrative around stress and all of its wild short-term health implications, but I'm not convinced it translates into reality. It's not easy to measure.
People are changing interpersonal work stress for interpersonal family stress which is itself magnified by the circumstances, plus the stress of a pandemic.
I have no idea what the cause could be, but to argue that "premie births are down because stress is down" can't possibly by tested right now, when stress is at an all-time high.
Also, I wasn’t exposed to all the other random illnesses besides Covid-19.
If this wasn’t our first kid, I probably would have been more stressed due to childcare problems, though.
This being Germany, I’ve been off work since I hit week 34, pandemic or no pandemic.
I was equally performing during pregnancy. The thing about pregnancy is that it varies a lot.
