Thoughts on the Field of Obstetrics’ Response to COVID-19: A Qualitative Research Project

Background: COVID-19 has affected the delivery of healthcare across the globe, including pregnancy care and childbirth, which are essential and cannot be deferred. Furthermore, pregnancy care has historically involved frequent ultrasounds and other procedures that require in-person visits. Implementing telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize in-person contact has affected these and other aspects of pregnancy care.

Objective: To gain insights into obstetric providers’ perceptions of how COVID-19 has affected pregnancy care from preconception to postpartum based on their experiences in their practices.

Methods: One-on-one semi-structured qualitative interviews with seven obstetric providers who have been practicing in the Bay Area during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results: Seven major topics were identified from the interviews and themes were identified within each major topic. The following are the primary themes within each major topic presented as “primary theme (corresponding major topic)”: patient anxiety (concerns about patients), providers contracting COVID-19 (concerns about providers), increased use of telehealth (future of obstetrics), receptive and understanding responses (patient behavioral responses), communication (provider behavioral responses), positives (thoughts on changes to care), and positives (thoughts on telehealth).

Conclusions: Overall, the interviewed providers were content with the changes made to pregnancy care and were mostly concerned about patient anxiety and their own occupational risk. These results could inform how obstetric units handle any future disease outbreaks and the factors they should consider in doing so.