COVID-19 onset reduced the sex ratio at birth in South Africa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The sex ratio at birth (defined as male/(male+female) live births) is anticipated to approximate 0.510 with a slight male excess. This ratio has been observed to decrease transiently around 3-5 months following sudden unexpected stressful events. We hypothesised that stress engendered by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused such a decrease in South Africa 3-5 months after March 2020 since in this month, South Africa reported its first COVID-19 case, death and nationwide lockdown restrictions were instituted.

Methods

We used publicly available, recorded monthly live birth data from Statistics South Africa. The most recent month for which data was available publicly was December 2020. We analysed live births for a 100-month period from September 2012 t

SUBMITTER: Masukume G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9435519 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature