Exploration of the Pregnant Women's Experiences During COVID-19 Disease Crisis: A Qualitative Study

Background: Prevention and control of COVID-19 disease in pregnant women has become a major concern. Healthcare providers should be aware that restriction of the routine prenatal care may have adverse effects. A qualitative approach can be helpful in understanding the pregnant women's experience and perspective in crisis. The study was conducted to explain the pregnant women's experiences during COVID-19 disease crisis. Methods: The qualitative study was conducted with conventional content analysis. Pregnant women selected with purposive sampling from six urban health centers in Babol (North of Iran). The semi structured individual interviews were done by telephone from May 03 to June 10, 2020. The systematic thematic analysis was used to identify and organize themes into clusters and categories across interviews. Findings: We recruited twelve pregnant women until data saturation. Three theme categories extracted from data analysis. The first was "unpleasant feelings during pregnancy", the pregnant women stated feelings in this crisis such as worry, fear, obsession, boredom, nervousness, discouragement, and the like, which led them to have no positive pregnancy experience. The second category was "adjusted lifestyle". They experienced changes in lifestyle with the aim of preventing COVID-19 disease. The third category was “safe pregnancy care”. The pregnant women, while paying attention to the importance of pregnancy care, were forced to limit, delay, or modify some cares in order to be safe. Interpretation: The pregnant women experienced unpleasant feelings in this crisis; therefore, they should receive the necessary consulting to maintain mental health. All pregnant women reported some changes in their lifestyle and pregnancy care in order to health considerations to prevent the disease. Regular training for all pregnant women is necessary to manage this important pregnancy period while maintaining the maternal and fetal health in crisis.Funding Statement: This project was supported by Babol University of Medical Sciences.Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that have no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: This research was approved by Ethics Committee of Babol University of Medical Sciences (IR.MUBABOL.REC.1399.110).