Babies born after 11 March 2020 will have only known a world in the grip of a pandemic. They may never have met anyone who isn’t their parent, or they may only ever have seen their grandparents from a distance.

What are the implications for these pandemic children?

While as researchers we do think that most babies will have had an opportunity to thrive, there’s still a lot we don’t know, and we are clear that the first months and years of life are vitally important for a child’s long-term health, development and wellbeing.

Development takes place at an extraordinary rate during a baby’s first year, when the brain doubles in size. This early development depends crucially on experience, and particularly social experience, which stimulates, tunes and hones the brain’s unfolding architecture.

A stimulating, varied and responsive environment supports the development of language, cognition and emotional and social competencies.

One thing we also know with great certainty is that parental stress and mental health problems pose serious risks to children’s later development, affecting their language and cognitive development, their emotional wellbeing and putting them at risk of depression and anxiety themselves.

As is sadly often the case, it is the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children who depend on these services and support networks the most.

For example, many health visitors, who provide advice and resources and who are often the main source of support and connection to health services for families with young babies, have been redeployed into the frontline COVID response during the pandemic.

Those who remained have reported that their work with families was considerably affected by very high caseloads and the barriers created by social distancing measures.

On top of that, friends and family have had their ability to visit loved ones and their babies drastically curtailed.

Social support from friends, family, community groups and professionals is normally considered vital not only because it provides infants with variety, stimulation and opportunities for learning, but also because it is good for the wellbeing of parents, on whom babies are so dependent.

So in these circumstances, what can parents do to help their babies? The evidence suggests that the key to optimal development is play and stimulation, those back-and-forth interactions between caregivers and babies.

There are good reasons to be concerned about infant and early child development during this time and, like so many other things, these risks will not be evenly distributed.

The lack of support structures, the economic pressures and the drastic reduction in professional contact with health visitors and social workers during the pandemic is almost certainly placing large numbers of babies at greatly increased risk of harm, including risk of maltreatment and even death.

The effects of abuse on child development are profound and long-lasting, including long-term physical disability, emotional distress and mental health concerns.

In normal times, maltreatment affects approximately 12%-23% of children, and children in economically disadvantaged circumstances are five times more likely to be subjected to abuse. In the UK, 51,510 children were on a child protection plan in March 2020 when the pandemic began.

An increased proportion (almost 40%) involved children under the age of one.

We also know that rates of domestic violence have increased greatly during the pandemic and babies are profoundly affected by this, both directly and indirectly.

Indeed, domestic violence is the single most common factor leading a child to be referred to a child protection service. We sadly under-invest in the most vulnerable children at the best of times. We should be extremely concerned about them in times like these.

Oxford Brookes University has conducted a study focused on how the pandemic is affecting children of the youngest ages, and in due course will provide us with much-needed insights. But it’s a concern that even now, a year in, we have very poor information about how babies and preschoolers have been affected by the momentous events that have taken place.

This highlights a key point: despite babies being among the most vulnerable in society and most dependent on nurturing care and stimulation, their needs are almost always the last to be noticed. The recent Working for Babies report called this the “baby blind-spot”, with good reason.

It’s clear that the time has come to step up in our responsibility for all of the babies born into these strange times.

(This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here.)