Online Antenatal Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Opportunities and Challenges

People across the world have been greatly affected by the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The high infection risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in hospitals is particularly problematic for recently delivered mothers and currently pregnant women who...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of medical Internet research Vol. 22; no. 7; p. e19916
Main Authors Wu, Huailiang, Sun, Weiwei, Huang, Xinyu, Yu, Shinning, Wang, Hao, Bi, Xiaoyu, Sheng, Jie, Chen, Sihan, Akinwunmi, Babatunde, Zhang, Casper J P, Ming, Wai-Kit
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Canada Gunther Eysenbach MD MPH, Associate Professor 22.07.2020
JMIR Publications
Subjects
Betacoronavirus
Coronavirus Infections
Coronaviruses
Cost analysis
COVID-19
Developing countries
Female
Health disparities
Health services
Hospitals
Humans
LDCs
Medical personnel
Mortality
Mothers
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral
Pregnancy
Prenatal Care
Prenatal education
Reliability
Remote Consultation
Reproducibility of Results
SARS-CoV-2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
Technology
Telemedicine
Trust
Viewpoint
Womens health
Working women
China
COVID-19
inequality
SARS-CoV-2
online education
online prenatal education
telehealth
pregnancy
antenatal
convenience
coronavirus disease
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:People across the world have been greatly affected by the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The high infection risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in hospitals is particularly problematic for recently delivered mothers and currently pregnant women who require professional antenatal care. Online antenatal care would be a preferable alternative for these women since it can provide pregnancy-related information and remote clinic consultations. In addition, online antenatal care may help to provide relatively economical medical services and diminish health care inequality due to its convenience and cost-effectiveness, especially in developing countries or regions. However, some pregnant women will doubt the reliability of such online information. Therefore, it is important to ensure the quality and safety of online services and establish a stable, mutual trust between the pregnant women, the obstetric care providers and the technology vis-a-vis the online programs. Here, we report how the COVID-19 pandemic brings not only opportunities for the development and popularization of online antenatal care programs but also challenges.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:1438-8871
1439-4456
1438-8871
DOI:10.2196/19916