To attain the main target of preventing some infections from a pregnant mother, healthcare providers in Malaysia are switching to telehealth during the Covid-19 pandemic. The revolution to telehealth and online consultation have contributed a huge momentum for a productive delivery in the obstetric area. Online consultation provides a wide range of services that are related to the pregnancy and is broadly used as an approach in the prenatal and postnatal care that include an online consultation with a specialist which you can consult a gynaecologist regarding your problems. Online consultation is such an effective way as most of the healthcare provider encounters may be accomplished during the online consultation including the visits for complications in lactation, prenatal care routine medical check up and follow up, mood disturbances in postpartum.
In the pandemic of Covid-19, it is a high risk for a pregnant mother to go for a medical check up at the clinic. Because of that, obstetricians say that you may go for the medical check-up at the clinic for certain in-person procedures, for example if you want to get vaccinations or ultrasounds. Otherwise, if you have some query about the pregnancy process, it can be conducted by having an online consultation with the obstetricians. To date, there are many healthcare providers that are applying teleconsultation instead of in-person visit. During the online consultation, the doctor will teach the mother regarding the steps to measure their blood pressure, weight, and the foetal heart rate at home. This will make it easier for the parents who need to travel a long distance for a medical check-up especially during the pandemic of Covid 19.
Besides that, online consultation also gives benefits for the mother who is currently in monitoring for high blood pressure and other comorbidities such as diabetes. Studies show that monitoring your health from the home will allow for an active care for the mother who has gestational diabetes. Although hypertension treatment needs the mother to see the doctor, by having an online consultation with obstetricians, it will help for the mother or the caregiver to always monitor their blood pressure at home. Furthermore, the doctors will also teach them what to do and when to go to see a doctor if there is an emergency.
By using an online consultation, specialists can give a consultation to the patients remotely rather than having to travel for a long distance to see a doctor. The mother also can connect easily to the foetal cardiologist to monitor their foetal heartbeat, as well as the diabetes educators to manage their diabetes properly. Apart from that, new mothers will have a lot of queries about the lactation. By using an online consultation, they can discuss more with the doctors privately from their home and more convenience. This will give you more benefits rather than in-person care as it can terminate travel costs especially those with a new-born baby in hand.
Postpartum care not only focuses on the mother after delivering the baby, but also concerns about their mental health and their well being after delivery. Generally, new mothers must wait until 6 weeks after delivery before they can go to the clinic for a medical check-up. However, if the mother is having some problems before that, it will cause the problem to be overlooked. Therefore, an online consultation is the most suitable platform to address the concern about a mother’s emotional and social well-being before they can go to the clinic to visit the doctor at 6 to 8 weeks postpartum.