SCOOP: Strengthening COVID-19 Communication in Pregnancy

This study explored what health messages and advice people received during pregnancy and after birth about COVID-19. Health messages include, but are not limited to, advice from health professionals (midwives and doctors), government health messages, social media, family and friends.

Objective

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way maternity care in Australia is delivered with fewer face-to-face antenatal appointments, cancellation of antenatal education classes and limits on support persons present during appointments, labour and birth.

Access to accurate and reliable health information is important to help pregnant people stay informed and make decisions about their pregnancy, birth and postnatal care. This can include information about antenatal care, birthing options, feeding advice, information about changes to health services, and COVID-19 vaccine information.

The challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the need for messages and health communications to keep up with constant and rapidly changing circumstances around public health measures to prevent COVID-19 transmission, and the subsequent impact on maternity care.

Timeline

July 2021.

Approach

We were interested in hearing from people living in Australia who were pregnant or had been pregnant since March 2020. This included women who have and haven’t tested positive for COVID-19 during this time. Participants were asked to complete a 30–60 minute telephone or online ‘Zoom’ video interview and were provided a gift voucher for their time.

This project aimed to improve the quality of the information provided to people to help support them throughout their pregnancy and after birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to better understand the types of information people feel they needed during this time and future public health crises.