Shadow of Pandemic: An Analysis of Maternal and Neonatal Outcomes before, during, and after the First and Second COVID-19 Waves

Abstract

Objective: India reported its first case of coronavirus in Kerala on 30th January, 2020. On March 24, 2020, the Government of India announced the first complete lockdown of the entire nation for 21 days for the containment of the virus. The immediate effect of the lockdown was that the cases and COVID-19-related deaths were significantly controlled. Besides the direct effects, the indirect impact of the pandemic and pandemic-control policies on healthcare services, communities, and the global economy may also affect vulnerable groups like pregnant women. The objective is to explore trends in maternal or neonatal outcomes during this pandemic by comparing the same in pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic phases. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of maternal and neonatal outcomes over the period from January 2020 to August 2021. The monthly statistics from the pre-pandemic period (2018 and 2019) were combined and then analyzed against the statistics from 2020 and 2021 using the Fisher’s exact test or Chi-squared analysis as appropriate. Results: There was positive correlation between the monthly number of COVID-19-related deaths with the monthly number of stillbirths (p = 0.153). The diagnosis of antenatal complications such as hypertension in pregnancy occurred at the same rate pre-pandemic as in the months during the pandemic. There was a strong positive correlation between maternal mortality and the number of COVID-19-related deaths (p = 0.016). Conclusion: Women’s healthcare is often adversely affected in humanitarian disasters, and our study highlights the importance of planning for powerfully built maternal services in any emergency services.