ABSTRACT
Spain was one of the epicenters of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We describe in this article the design and results of a new telephone-and-telematic multiplatform model of systematic prenatal and postpartum follow-up for COVID-19-affected women implemented in a tertiary reference hospital in Madrid. We included patients with RT-PCR-confirmed COVID-19 during pregnancy or delivery from 10 March 2020 to 15 December 2020. We had a total of 211 obstetric patients: 148 (70.1%) were tested at the onset of suspicious clinical manifestations and 62 (29.4%) were tested in the context of routine screening. Of all the patients, 60 women (28.4%) were asymptomatic and 97 (46%) presented mild symptoms. Fifty-one women (24.2%) were admitted to our hospital for specific treatment because of moderate or severe symptoms. We had no missed cases and a good adherence. The mean number of calls per patient was 2.3. We performed 55 in-person visits. We analyzed the complexity of our program over time, showing a two-wave-like pattern. One patient was identified as needing hospitalization and we did not record major morbidity. Telemedicine programs are a strong and reproducible tool to reach to pregnant population affected by COVID-19, to assess its symptoms and severity, and to record for pregnancy-related symptoms both in an outpatient regime and after discharge from hospital.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Female , Humans , Outpatients , Pandemics , Postnatal Care , Pregnancy , Prenatal Care , SARS-CoV-2 , Spain/epidemiologyABSTRACT
There is an increased interest nowadays on ultrasound analysis of the fetal thymus. Abnormal fetal thymic growth have been associated with DiGeorge syndrome, conotruncal cardiac malformations, chromosomal abnormalities and adverse outcome in different perinatal conditions as intrauterine growth restriction, preterm birth and others. Different methodologies that measure the fetal thymus by ultrasound have been published, however there is not a consensus of which one is the most useful. Our aim is to describe these methodologies and discuss their clinical applications.
