Application of remote fetal heart rate monitoring via internet in late pregnancy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Internet-related technologies have rapidly developed and started to impact the traditional medical practices, which combined wireless communication technology as well as "cloud service" technology with electronic fetal heart monitoring have become a mainstream tendency.

Objective: To investigate the clinical application value of remote fetal heart rate monitoring mode (RFHRM) on late pregnancy during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Methods: From March 2021 to February 2022, we recruited 800 cases of pregnant women received prenatal examination at the Anhui Province Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital. These pregnant women were randomly divided into two groups: the control group (n= 400), which was given traditional management, and the observation group (n= 400), which received remote monitoring technology on this basis. The two groups were compared with neonatal asphyxia, pregnancy outcomes, Edinburgh postnatal depression scale scores (EPDS), prenatal examination expenses and total time consumption.

Results: There were no statistically significant differences between the groups in pregnancy outcome and neonatal outcome (P> 0.05). However, total EPDS score of 12.5% pregnant women in the observation group were higher than 12. The TPE group had significantly higher mean EPDS scores compared with the RFHRM group (7.79 ± 3.58 vs 5.10 ± 3.07; P< 0.05). The results showed a significant difference in maternity expenses (2949.83 ± 456.07 vs 2455.37 ± 506.67; P< 0.05) and total time consumption (42.81 ± 7.60 vs 20.43 ± 4.16; P< 0.05) between the groups.

Conclusion: Remote fetal heart rate monitoring via internet served as an innovative, acceptable, safe and effective reduced-frequency prenatal examination model without affecting the outcome of perinatology of pregnant women with different risk factors.