Babies who were born during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic had lower developmental scores compared to pre-pandemic, a study suggests. According to research published on Tuesday in JAMA Pediatrics, COVID-19 infection during pregnancy does not appear to affect infants’ brain function, but the pandemic itself may be having an impact. A group of researchers in New York City studied 255 infants born between March and December 2020, including 114 whose mothers had COVID-19 during pregnancy. It found that some born during the pandemic experienced slight developmental delays. Overall, compared with 62 infants born before the pandemic, the babies born during the health crisis had slightly lower scores on tasks involving large muscles, tasks requiring small muscle movements, and personal interactions. “Both exposed and unexposed infants born during that period had significantly lower scores on gross motor, fine motor, and personal-social subdomains compared with a historical cohort of infants …