JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

During this ongoing global pandemic of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), people in different regions of the world have been greatly affected. Recently delivered mothers and currently pregnant women were in a dilemma during this period since they needed professional antenatal care while there were high infection risks of SARS-CoV-2 in hospitals. Therefore, online antenatal care would be a preferable choice for them because it could provide pregnancy-related information and online clinic consultations. In addition, online antenatal care could help to provide relatively cheaper medical services and diminish health inequality due to its convenience and cost-effectiveness, especially in developing countries or regions while not compromising the standard and being very sensitive of pregnancy risks by ensuring emergency services are immediately available when needed. But some pregnant women will doubt the reliability and the confidentiality of the online information. So, how to ensure the quality of their services and establish the stable mutual trust between pregnant women and online program would be a big problem for them. Our study observed that the COVID-19 pandemic brings not only opportunities to the development and popularization of online antenatal care programs but also challenges.