AUTHOR=Kanecki Krzysztof , Lewtak Katarzyna , Tyszko Piotr , Kosińska Irena , Tarka Patryk , Goryński Paweł , Nitsch-Osuch Aneta 

TITLE=Newborn Hospitalizations Before and During COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland: A Comparative Study Based on a National Hospital Registry

JOURNAL=International Journal of Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 69 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2024.1606272

DOI=10.3389/ijph.2024.1606272

ISSN=1661-8564

ABSTRACT=Objectives: There are limited data on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Poland on newborn health. The aim of the study is to show recent information on hospitalizations of newborns in Poland in the pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic era.
Methods: A retrospective, population-based study was conducted using data from hospital discharge records of patients hospitalized in 2017-2021.
Results: The data on which the study was based consisted of a substantial number of 104450 hospitalization records. Annual hospitalization rate was estimated to be 50.3 – 51.9 per 1000 in 2017-2019, 56 per 1000 in 2020 and it rose to 77.7 per 1000 in 2021. In comparison to the pre-pandemic period, in the COVID-19 era, we observed significantly more hospitalization cases of newborns affected by maternal renal and urinary tract diseases (P<0.001), syndrome of infant of mother with gestational diabetes (P<0.001), maternal complications of pregnancy (P<0.001). In the COVID-19 era, the prevalence of COVID-19 among newborns was 4.5 cases per 1000 newborn hospitalizations.
Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak could significantly contribute to qualitative and quantitative changes in hospitalizations among newborns.