What can we learn from China’s experience in managing maternal and child care during the COVID-19 pandemic? Join us for a discussion of recent experience, global lessons, and potential areas for China-U.S. collaboration.
- Speaker: Professor Jie QIAO, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of Peking University Third Hospital. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Qiao lead the Hubei medical aid team of Peking University which was responsible for critical and maternal care. She has written about impact of COVID-19 on maternal health in The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Her own research focuses on the molecular mechanism of human gametogenesis and embryo development, infertility pathology and clinical treatments, the protection and preservation of female fertility, as well as developing new pre-implantation diagnosis methods. She has led teams to achieve a number of technical and theoretical breakthroughs in the systematic study of human embryonic development and has made many landmark contributions to the development of reproductive medicine.
- Discussant: Michelle Williams, Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Discussant: Ana Langer, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- Host: Winnie Yip, Director, Harvard China Health Partnership
Presented by the Harvard China Health Partnership as part of the ongoing series, China and Global Experience with COVID-19, and co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.
Summary
Dr. Qiao’s presentation focused on the lessons that healthcare providers around the world can learn from how Peking University Tertiary Hospital and the Chinese healthcare system more broadly addressed patients’ obstetric care needs throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, during which 2,258 deliveries took place at Peking University Tertiary Hospital alone. She and Dr. Langer identified a number of strengths in China’s approach to overcoming the challenges of managing obstetric care during a pandemic, including the publication of clear guidance and best-practices by the Chinese government, the segregation of obstetric patients according to the risk level of their pregnancies, whether they have COVID-19, and the severity of their COVID-19 symptoms if present, the rapid scaling of diagnostic infrastructure, and the transition of routine gynecological and prenatal checkups to telehealth platforms whenever possible.
However, they also identified a number of weaknesses in China’s response. In particular, they pointed to overbroad mandates requiring that mothers separate from their newborn for 14 days following birth to mitigate the risk of vertical transmission, even if the mothers exhibited no signs of COVID-19 and in spite of a dearth of evidence suggesting vertical transmission of COVID-19 is a meaningful risk. They noted that these policies have had a devastating toll on the mental health of new mothers, leading to strikingly elevated rates of PTSD. However, the policies themselves are not solely to blame for that – the average duration of mother-newborn separation following birth in China has been 35 days, far more than mandated, because mothers are so worried about the possibility of infecting their children. Similarly, though there is no evidence that COVID-19 is transmissible through breastmilk, restrictions on breastfeeding by COVID-19 positive mothers remain in place in many parts of China, and even where such restrictions do not exist, fear and the separation of mothers from their newborns have depressed rates of breastfeeding far below-trend. Finally, unnecessary caesarean sections are also on the rise because of the pandemic. In summary, while China’s effectiveness in adapting its obstetric care infrastructure to pandemic conditions has been admirable, its policies restricting mothers’ access to their newborns after birth seem, at present, likely to have done more harm than good.
Resources:
- Recording of the webinar is available here.
