Mix of In-Office, Telehealth Visits Safe for Prenatal Care

TUESDAY, July 18, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A multimodal prenatal health care model that combines in-office and telemedicine visits is safe and associated with similar maternal and newborn outcomes as exclusive in-office visits, according to a study published online July 18 in JAMA Network Open.

Assiamira Ferrara, M.D., Ph.D., from Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland, and colleagues evaluated whether prenatal health care delivered by a multimodal model of in-office and telemedicine visits during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in similar maternal and newborn health outcomes to prepandemic in-office health care.

The researchers found that among 151,464 individuals who delivered a live birth or stillbirth, the mean number of total prenatal visits was similar among those who were unexposed (birth delivery: July 1, 2018, to Feb. 29, 2020), partially exposed (birth delivery: March 1, 2020, to Dec. 5, 2020), and fully exposed (birth delivery: Dec. 6, 2020, to Oct. 31, 2021) to the multimodal prenatal health care model. Across the time periods, neonatal intensive care unit admissions were 9.2, 8.3, and 8.6 percent, respectively. There were no clinically relevant changes observed over time in the risk for preeclampsia and eclampsia, severe maternal morbidity, cesarean delivery, preterm birth, or secondary outcomes.

"These findings suggest that a multimodal prenatal health care model combining in-office and telemedicine visits performed adequately compared with in-office only prenatal health care, supporting its continued use after the pandemic," the authors write.

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