Did changes in conception rates alone account for the decline in preterm births during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Affiliations

• ¹ Department of Mother and Child Health, Azienda USL Toscana Nord Ovest, Pisa, Italy.
• ² Unit of Epidemiology, Regional Health Agency of Tuscany, Florence, Italy.
• ³ Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.
• ⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Care Intelligence, Regional Agency for Health and Social Affair of Puglia, Bari, Italy.
• ⁵ Department of Public Health and Paediatric Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy.
• ⁶ Unit of Clinical Governance, Azienda USL - IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.
• ⁷ Pianificazione, Programmazione e Controllo Direzionale, Azienda Regionale di Coordinamento della Salute, Udine, Italy.
• ⁸ Welfare General Directorate, Milan, Italy.
• ⁹ Birth Registry, Coordinating Centre for Rare Diseases, Veneto Region, Padua, Italy.
• ¹⁰ Area rete ospedaliera, Lazio Regional Authority, Rome, Italy.
• ¹¹ Department of Clinical and Evaluative Epidemiology, Health Service of Trento, Trento, Italy.
• ¹² Department of Maternal and Child Health, General Directorate for Health Campania Region, Naples, Italy.
• ¹³ Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation, National Research Council, Palermo, Italy.
• ¹⁴ Department of Health Activities and Epidemiological Observatory, Regional Health Authority, Sicilian Region, Palermo, Italy.