Antenatal care during the pandemic in India: the problem and the solutions

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to public health, food systems and economic structure of the world leading to dramatic loss of human life and income.1 The obstacles were not only in treating patients infected by the virus but also for seeking medical care for other non-COVID pathological and physiological health conditions. Antenatal care is one such non-emergency yet essential health service which got overlooked and hence was compromised. During the pre-COVID times, antenatal care in India was either based on traditional care model (involving 12-14 visits)2 or WHO-2016 based recommendations (involving at least 8 visits).3 Such models were formulated to reduce perinatal mortality and improve women’s experience of care during pregnancy. It assists in screening, diagnosing and managing the risk factors that might adversely affect the pregnant women and pregnancy outcome.4 However, in the current pandemic situation such frequent visits to hospital for seeking care; will expose the expectant mothers and their fetuses to COVID-19 infection. Pregnant women because of physiological alterations in immune and cardiorespiratory systems fall under vulnerable group to develop complications due to virus even though are not at an increased risk of getting infected as compared to the general population.5