Telehealth lifestyle interventions are gaining increasing popularity for use in pregnancy for management of complications such as gestational diabetes and for monitoring of blood pressure. Telehealth has also been used in trials in low-income and middle-income countries, particularly in rural communities where access to antenatal care is challenging. The option of using telehealth in antenatal care has been brought sharply into focus with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Pregnant women are considered a vulnerable group and are therefore advised to be stringent with public health measures such as social distancing and self-isolation to lower their risk of exposure to the virus.
Show2Doc limits face-to-face consultations during the pandemic but provides rapid implementation of remote access to antenatal care (ANC).
Specific processes include the following:
- Register a pregnant woman
- Identify a pregnant woman in HMIS
- Subscribe a pregnant woman
- Mark a stage a pregnancy
- Monitor ANC attendance
- Send messages via text-chats
- Take a video calls in neccessary cases
- Send alerts and reminders for a pregnant woman
- Set a daily monitoring tasks, etc.
The essential elements of a focused approach to antenatal care
• Identification and surveillance of the pregnant woman and her expected child
• Recognition and management of pregnancy-related complications, f.e. pre-eclampsia
• Recognition and treatment of underlying or concurrent illness
• Screening for conditions and diseases such as anaemia, STIs (particularly syphilis), HIV infection, mental health problems, and/or symptoms of stress or domestic violence
• Preventive measures, including tetanus toxoid immunisation, de-worming, iron and folic acid, intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy, insecticide treated bednets
• Advice and support to the woman and her family for developing healthy home behaviours and a birth and emergency preparedness plan to:
- Increase awareness of maternal and newborn health needs and self care during pregnancy and the postnatal period.
- Promote healthy behaviours in the home, including healthy lifestyles and diet, and support and care in the home, such as advice and adherence support for preventive interventions like iron or vitamin supplementation
- Support care seeking behaviour, including recognition of danger signs for the woman and the newborn
- Help the pregnant woman and her partner prepare emotionally and physically for birth and care of their baby.
Case: Show2Doc for pregnant women
This is Anna and Peter. They are expecting their first child. To avoid unnecessary visits to the clini, they use Show2Doc.
Now the doctor is monitoring Anna’s vital signs and is always in touch. If they have any questions with Show2Doc they are much less worried.
Combating morning sickness, scheduling doctor’s visits, remembering to take your prenatal vitamins, tracking your quickly growing baby — there’s so much to keep tabs on.
The Show2Doc telehealth app and connected medical devices allow to track all vital signs and communicate with doctors:
- quick chat available for instant feedback
- regular prescription monitoring
- it has user-friendly intuitive interface
- video calls in emergency cases
- all vital signs and symptoms have already been entered by the patient
- time, cost and life saving.