ABSTRACT
Purpose: To review and understand the impact of COVID-19 on Pregnant mothers and its effect on Infant's development. Relevance: Postpartum health of the mother is affected in terms of their mental well-being, separation period and stress which may lead to indirect effect on infant's brain development. Therefore an appropriate developmental screening must be done to these infants so that early intervention plan can be done if required. Participants: Studies reporting about pregnant women infected with COVID-19 and their infant were included and women not tested positive for COVID-19 were excluded. Methodology: Comprehensive literature search was performed using the search engines PubMed, Google scholar. Search strategy was devised, articles were selected based on the Inclusion and Exclusion criteria. Analysis: 81 articles were screened and 8 were included in the review. 2 were Observational Studies, 4 were reviews,1 was cohort study and other was longitudinal study. Results: Majority of the studies reported delivery occurred in isolation room with 14 days separation period, Postpartum practices like breastfeeding, KMC are safe to be practiced with appropriate precautions. Longitudinal study in China found negative association after evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on mother's psychological status and infant's early development, by using ASQ Questionnaire upto 3 months. Conclusion: Many articles spoke about the postpartum health of the mother being affected following COVID-19, not much emphasis was given on infant's development. Implications: Since adversity and stress during prenatal period are associated with later impairments in the infant, long term impact of COVID-19 during pregnancy on infant's development is an important area for further studies.