Network for high-risk pregnant women shows great results
An at-risk pregnant woman is taken to hospital
Shanghai is the first city in China to establish a system to identity the condition of each pregnant woman and give appropriate monitoring and management, achieving great results in reducing mortality and risk for pregnant women who experience complications, local health officials said on Monday.
In Shanghai, each pregnant woman is classified in a color system — green, yellow, orange, red or purple — in line with their condition and level of risk.
“Along with the classification system, there is a reporting and management network, which requires every hospital to report high-risk pregnant women within one hour for immediate intervention and treatment,” said Zhu Liping, director of the Shanghai Center for Women and Children’s Health.
“If a pregnant woman dies, an evaluation and appraisal mechanism involving district and city-level maternity institutions will be launched immediately. For cases where death could have been avoided, the authority will do a citywide report and impose punishment.”
There are over 170,000 child births in Shanghai every year, and the city has managed to keep an extremely low maternal mortality rate — 1.15 per 100,000 births — and an infant mortality rate of 3.52 per 1,000. These figures have continued dropping in recent years and have been in line with developed countries and regions for over a decade, according to the Shanghai Health Commission.
“The city has invested 1 billion yuan (US$147.7 million) since 2016 to improve health services for women and children and enhance obstetric and pediatric capabilities — the whole process of prenatal checks, after-delivery care and newborn screenings have all been perfected,” Zhu said. “The challenge is that some migrant women with low health awareness don't go to medical facilities for prenatal checks and monitoring, so the health authority cooperates with the community government to look for and cover these women."
Zhu said that in 2018, over 96 percent of pregnant women were covered by the monitoring network.
To ensure the health and safety of every high-risk pregnant woman and newborn baby, the city has established five high-risk pregnancy diagnosis and treatment centers and six critical newborn rescue centers.
Since 2010, the centers have treated nearly 5,000 at-risk pregnant women and some 40,000 at-risk newborn babies, officials said.
A doctor checks a critical newborn baby.
A doctor educates a pregnant woman on nutrition during pregnancy.
