Pregnant during a pandemic? Here are a doctor's prenatal tips to stay safe from the coronavirus
Three floors have been added to the Penn State Children's Hospital on the campus of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The expansion project has an estimated budget of $148.1 million. Occupancy is expected to begin in fall 2020. January 24, 2020. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com
By Sean Adams | sadams@pennlive.com
As the coronavirus spreads, a persistent story is how people in the hardest hit areas around the globe find their hospitals overwhelmed with patients needing urgent care.
While we have not reached that point of emergency in our region, concern still exists around hospitals and doctor's offices: anywhere people gather is a potential danger when trying to maintain a safe distance, particularly a place where sick people gather.
Fortunately, health care professionals are still working hard in other fields of medicine beyond just treating those suffering from COVID-19. And that includes caring for pregnant women and their unborn children.
"We are still providing full prenatal care," said Dr. Jaimey Pauli, maternal fetal medicine specialist at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. "But we are doing it in a reduced number of visits."
Dr. Pauli is also the director of labor and delivery at the hospital, as well as associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology. She explained that the first step in protecting expecting mothers was the same step everyone should be taking right now: stay home as much as possible.
"It is important that everyone, everyone who is able to, practice the social distancing and to stay at home, to really reduce the interaction of large groups," Pauli said. "Not only does it protect the patient and their pregnancy, but it also protects other people and protects the health care workers who are trying to flatten that curve."
Dr. Pauli added that basic hand hygiene and avoiding people who are sick are also vital to the overall slowing of the virus' spread, and that "pregnant people are no exception."
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To help minimize pregnant women's exposure, the staff at Penn State Health have been condensing as many wellness visits and checkups as possible into a single trip, and supplementing those visits with "telemedicine" - phone calls or video meetings with a doctor through various platforms.
The new treatment plans have been developed with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, as well as the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine. And while the scale of the coronavirus outbreak is unlike anything seen in the United States in living memory, there are physicians with Penn State Health that have do have some applicable experience in dangerous viral outbreaks.
"Penn State, as I understand it, was part of the Ebola preparation team," Pauli said. "So we have a special pathogens team that has been very involved in all of our planning, institution-wide. The hospital was very prepared to execute this plan. There have been somewhat extraordinary efforts on the management and leadership side to put together teams, as this pandemic as unrolled. We have really had to flex with new information and new standards of how we're going to care for these patients."
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As the hospital enacted what Pauli called "significant changes" to all types of medical care that takes place, obstetrics was no exception. But even with the plan to reduce the number of visits for patients, she said, "we are still absolutely open."
"If any patient has any type of acute issue, either obstetrical or form a gynecology issue, we are still open to see patients, both in the clinic or at the hospital when needed," she said. "There's a lot of concern from patients that they can't be seen, or, when should they be seen? If someone has an emergency or an issue that needs to be addressed, we are still seeing patients in our clinics."
Pauli recommended that anyone who is newly pregnant, or believes they may be pregnant, should still call an OB/GYN and set up a visit. The staff at Penn State Health will then help determine a the consolidated schedule for any necessary visits, as well as set up the telemedicine meetings.
But even verifying a pregnancy will mean taking a trip outside, in a time when even a visit to a local pharmacy may be a slight risk of COVID-19 exposure.
"Yes, everyone has to be very careful about interacting in public," Pauli said. "I think that one of the great things about living in the 21st century is the ability to order things online and have them come to your door. I think people are being very creative in how they obtain what they need. But if there is ever a question or concern, call your obstetrician, and we will help work out what exactly you need specifically."
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Thus far, Pauli said, there isn't enough data to determine if pregnant women are at any special risk from COVID-19, but taking higher than usual precautions seems like a good idea regardless.
"We do know that pregnant women are at increased risk of complications from other respiratory viruses, the most common we know about is influenza," she said. "So out of an abundance of caution, we're treating them as extra special."
Even during times of fear and uncertainty, Pauli said, medical professionals are standing by to make sure mothers and newborns stay safe and healthy.
"I will tell you that it is business as usual," she said. "Babies are still coming and we are having wonderful birth experiences with our families. We're making sure they're still really well taken care of, and we're there to help get them through their pregnancy and get them safely to deliver."
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