Perinatal assistance services during the COVID–19 pandemic restriction measures

Abstract

Introduction. Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic established common restrictive measures that have limited access to perinatal care, with unfavourable consequences for perinatal indicators. Aim of study. Analysis of the access to perinatal care services in the Republic of Moldova (RM) during COVID-19 pandemic. Methods and materials. The RM became part of a study called “International Sexual Health and Reproductive Health during COVID-19” (I-SHARE) using a common instrument for 30 participating countries. The study included 200 women, the analysis of the obtained results was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics V21.0 software. Results. The study involved 200 women, 183/200 (91.5%) of whom were of reproductive age, on average 33.9 ± 9.6 years old. Higher education had 150/200 (75.0%), besides that 82.0% (164/200) of respondents were married or in cohabitation. In 73.0% (146/200) cases, the respondents had one or more children, being familiar with the perinatal management in the RM. The social distancing measures were respected by 173/200 (86.5%) women, and 51.0% (102/200) of them were at least once in self-isolation. In 99/200 cases (49.5%), patients were tested for SARS-CoV2, in 48.5% (48/99) cases the result was positive; these were monitored according to the COVID-19 protocol of the RM. At the moment, when the survey was carried out, 25/200 (12.5%) women were pregnant at various gestational age, 23/200 (11.5%) women gave birth during the last 2 months, and 19/200 (9.5%) women were planning to conceive, following prenatal recommendations and/or infertility treatment. In all cases, the pregnancy occurred spontaneous, being planned in 17/23 Conclusion. The I-SHARE study found that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to prenatal services due to introducing social distancing and isolation measures. At the same time, due to the increased request of pregnant and postpartum women, the providing of perinatal services through telemedicine was encouraged. This allowed the high level of maternal and child health services to be maintained, preventing perinatal complications.