Limited access to health services during this pandemic has led to worries that less people are receiving contraceptives. According to the National Population and Family Planning Board’s (BKKBN) latest figures, 28 million Indonesian couples receive contraception services. However, the board noticed a 20 to 30 percent decline in recipients from February to March, with variations among provinces.

Concerns of a baby boom and population increase are not the only reasons experts are advising couples to delay pregnancies. Head of BKKBN, Hasto Wardoyo, said pregnant mothers were vulnerable during the first trimester and tended to have health discomforts such as nausea. Their immune systems are also weaker than usual, and thus they are at increased risk of infection. We have yet to fully understand the effects of COVID-19 infection on fetuses, nor the effects of medication on the infected mother and fetus.   

Pregnant mothers also face more restrictions in prenatal check-ups during the pandemic. Well before the pandemic, Indonesia’s maternal mortality rate was already a major issue, with a high national rate of 305 per 100,000 live births.

Many factors related to the virus remain unknown. While researchers are still striving to discover a vaccine, a few cases of newborns being infected with the virus have been reported. In Wuhan, China, where the world’s first cases were found, a newborn became the youngest individual to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, reports in early February said, similar to another newborn in mid March in London. The mother in Wuhan had tested positive for COVID-19 before delivery.

Transmission of the virus to newborns is still a matter of speculation, as it is unknown if it occurs in the womb, or is transmitted during delivery or soon after birth as a result of close contact with the mother. A Canadian baby was tested several times following birth in mid May, and its nasopharyngeal swab, plasma and faeces were found to be positive. Yet, the baby was delivered through caesarean section, which means the newborn was protected from vaginal secretion and the amniotic membrane was unharmed. In addition, a sample from a nasopharyngeal swab was taken before the baby had skin contact with the mother. Doctors suggested transmission was likely to occur inside the womb, reports on May 16 said.

However, The Lancet journal recently published a study on nine pregnant women with COVID-19 suggesting that intrauterine transmission was highly unlikely. The samples of amniotic fluid, umbilical cord, breastmilk and the newborns’ throat swab had tested negative for the virus. ⁽https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930360-3).

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