How COVID-19 challenged care for women and their newborns: a qualitative case study of the experience of Belgian midwives during the first wave of the pandemic

  1. Elise Huysmans
  2. Constance Audet
  3. Thérèse Delvaux
  4. Anna Galle
  5. Aline Semaan
  6. Anteneh Asefa
  7. Lenka Benova

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

In this article, we describe the results of a rapid qualitative study conducted between May 19 and June 25, 2020 on the work experience of midwives during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brussels and Wallonia (Belgium). Using semi-structured interviews conducted with fifteen midwives working in hospitals or practicing privately, we investigated the impact of the first COVID-19 wave on their work experience, the woman-midwife relationship, and midwife-perceived changes in quality of care. Findings include high levels of stress and insecurity related to the lack of resources and personal protective equipment, feelings of distrust from midwives towards the Belgian State and public health authorities, as well as structural and organizational challenges within maternity wards which negatively affected quality of care. Moreover, based on the midwives’ experiences, we demonstrate the need to recognise the views of all stakeholders involved in maternal and newborn care provision, and share five essential lessons learned from this study: 1) it is crucial to acknowledge the central role of midwives for maintaining maternal and newborn care amidst the pandemic and beyond; 2) creating unified national guidelines could support ensuring best practice; 3) efforts must be put in place to diminish the climate of mistrust towards health authorities and to repair the relationship between midwives and decision-makers which was damaged during the pandemic; 4) caring for front-line healthcare workers’ mental health is critical, and 5) quality of maternal care can be improved, even in the midst of a pandemic, through team effort and creative solutions tailored to the needs and demands of each setting.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.21.21257440: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: At the beginning of each interview, the researchers collecting data introduced themselves, explained the objectives of the study and the ethical obligations concerning the study, especially to warrant anonymity and confidentiality and asked for verbal informed consent.
    IRB: Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp on May 5, 2020 (reference 1372/20).
    Sex as a biological variableThree respondents worked in a private hospital, four in a public hospital, five were privately practicing (mainly providing care to women and newborns at home), and three with multiple employment (privately practicing and hospital-affiliated).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.21.21257440v1 on medRxiv