Maternal health care management during the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is a novel type of highly contagious pneumonia caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). Despite the strong efforts taken to control the epidemic, hundreds of thousands of people were infected worldwide by Mar. 11^th, and was characterized as a pandemic by World Health Organization. Pregnant women are more susceptible to the virus due to immune and anatomic alteration, though hospital visits may increase the chance of infection, the lack of medical care during pregnancy may do more harm. Hence, a well‐managed system that allows pregnant women to access maternal health care with minimum exposure risk is desired during the outbreak. Here, we present the managing processes of three pregnant women that had a fever during hospitalization at gynecology or obstetrics department, then further summarize and demonstrate our maternal health care management strategies including antenatal care planning, patient triage based on risk level, admission control, and measures counteracting emergencies and newly discovered high risk cases at in‐patient department. In the meantime, we will explain the alterations we have done throughout different stages of the epidemic, and also review relative articles in both Chinese and English to compare our strategies with those of other areas. Although tens of COVID‐19 cases were confirmed in our hospital, no nosocomial infection has occurred and none of the pregnant woman registered in our hospital was reported to be infected.