Awareness about transmission and preventive measures of COVID-19 from mother to child: A cross-sectional study among pregnant women

Objective: To study the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant women regarding transmission and preventive measures of COVID-19 from mother to child and to determine the reasons for vaccine hesitancy. Methods: This observational cross-sectional knowledge, attitude, and practice study was conducted among pregnant women of any trimester, attending the antenatal care out-patient department of a tertiary care hospital in Lucknow from October 2020 to March 2021. All the participants were interviewed using a pretested semistructured questionnaire for desired information. Reasons for vaccine hesitancy were also asked to assess their unwillingness to get vaccinated. Results: Totally 652 pregnant women were included and 91.3% were aware that COVID-19 spread through contact with an infected person and 85.3% knew that COVID-19 spread by respiratory droplets. Of pregnant women, 95.7% perceived that social distancing and wearing a proper mask were effective ways to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and 96.8% of the pregnant women wore masks regularly when going out. Of pregnant women, 79.0% were hesitant to get vaccinated. The most common reason was that COVID-19 vaccine can harm the developing fetus (77.5%) and was not very safe in pregnancy (75.0%). Conclusions: Of the pregnant women, 22.92% have unsatisfactory knowledge regarding COVID-19, 35.63% have negative attitude and 19.93% have poor practices, indicating that there are still gaps in awareness, and majority of them are unwilling to get vaccinated. Good awareness will help prevent the occurrence of future COVID-19 waves in India.