Impact of COVID-19 on abused pregnant and lactating women receiving reproductive and child health services at tertiary care hospital, New Delhi, India

The worldwide healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic’s emergence and increasing intensification. As a result, essential and routine reproductive child health (RCH) services have been severely harmed. The paper tries to find out the impact of COVID-19 on abused pregnant and lactating women receiving routine RCH services at a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi, India. It is an ethnography study undertaken with 150 abused pregnant and lactating women receiving RCH services at Lok Nayak Hospital, New Delhi. They were called and followed up with over the phone from March 23 to May 22, 2020. The findings revealed that there has been an increase in the incidences of domestic violence. The main reasons for difficulty reported by the women were inadequate information on changes in antenatal care at the hospital, lockdown restrictions on travel from one facility to another, a breakdown in communication with the healthcare team, and health system barriers. As a result, it exacerbated pregnant and lactating women’s anxiety and distress. During the crisis, these negative consequences on pregnancy outcomes and maternal health must be taken into account immediately. Instead of women seeking information and services, the health system can make normal public health services more accessible to women by offering proactive tailored information over the phone on where to go, when to go, what precautions to take, and so on. For better RCH services to women during pandemics, the government must design a health management system that balances routine care with emergency treatment.