A UN report predicts millions of unintended pregnancies due to healthcare restrictions during lockdown

• As the novel coronavirus has shut down healthcare services around the world, women and girls in low- and middle-income countries are being hit especially hard with unintended consequences.
• One estimate from the UN found that for every 6 months of healthcare service disruption in these countries, 47 million women will lose access to contraception and 7 million will experience unintended pregnancies.
• A different study predicted that in the next 6 months, 1 million children and over 50 thousand mothers could die due to the indirect effect of COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus has shut down non-essential healthcare services across the world, interrupted medical supply chains, and kept people indoors and away from clinics — all consequences that are likely to have a disproportionate, and devastating, effect on women and girls in middle- and low-income countries, speakers at a World Health Organization media briefing said June 12.

"As the pandemic accelerates in low- and middle-income countries, WHO is especially concerned about its impact on people who already struggle to access health services – often women, children and adolescents," the director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"The indirect effects of COVID-19 on these groups may be greater than the number of deaths due to the virus itself."

One estimate from the United Nations Population Fund, for example, found that for every six months of healthcare service disruption, 47 million women will lose access to contraception and 7 million will experience unintended pregnancies.

The UN report also predicted 31 million additional cases of gender-based violence over six months of lockdowns, two million cases of preventable female genital mutilation over the next decade, and 13 million child marriages over the decade due how the virus has affected efforts to stop these practices.

"Even before the emergence of COVID-19, for millions of women, timely high-quality maternal health care was unavailable, it was inaccessible, or it was not affordable," Natalia Kanem, UNPF's executive director said during the briefing. "And now with the pandemic, we're seeing exacerbation of already limited access to care, putting women's health and lives at risk."

Infant and maternal mortality could also soar due to coronavirus disruptions

The pandemic could also to lead to soaring rates of infant and maternal mortality due to issues like midwife shortages and lack of personal protective equipment, missed prenatal appointments, closed or unclean birth environments, and the inability to access interventions like antibiotics known to help reduce maternal mortality rates.

One study projected that, in the worst-case scenario, in the next six months, 1 million children and over 50 thousand mothers could die due to the indirect impact of COVID-19.

"The COVID-19 pandemic threatens our shared vision for helping end preventable maternal deaths," Mary-Ann Etiebet, the executive director of Merck for Mothers, said during the briefing.(The other guests included Gabriela Cuevas Barron, president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and Jayathma Wickramanayake, UN Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth.)

To prevent these worse-case scenarios from becoming realities, the speakers called for many sectors — including global organizations and initiatives like theirs, local governments, providers on the front lines, and even social innovators making technologies to make healthcare more accessible — to work together.

They also called to make women and children's healthcare services universally accessible and declared essential.

"We have already learned from the affected West African countries how Ebola wiped out 28 years of progress toward maternal, child, and adolescent health goals," Etiebet said.

"We cannot afford to look back on the next 10 years as the decade of picking up the pieces and rebuilding trust in the ability of health systems to deliver on essential services for women and children," she continued. "We need rather to look back on the next 10 years as the decade of accelerating action because we all came together to do this."