Lakhasly

Introduction
Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has strong
infectivity and severe pathogenicity [1], frst broke out in
Wuhan, China in December 2019, and has been a threat
to the health of the people all over the world. It has since
afected over 180 countries and had a major outbreak
in many countries, such as Italy, the United Kingdom,
Spain, France, Russia, South Korea, Iran, Brazil, India,
the United States, and more [2]. Until August 24, 2020,
a cumulative total of over 23 million cases and 800 000
COVID-19 related deaths have been reported.[3].
Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei Province, has close
links with surrounding cities by countless trafc lines,
and has been considered the center of the frst stage of
the COVID-19 epidemic in China. On January 22, 2020,
Wuhan locked down the entire city, and adopted a series of
strict restrictions to prevent the further spread of COVID-
19. Restrictions included closing inter-city transporta-
tion and intra-city public transportation, restricting free
access outside communities, and recommending everyone
to stay at home. Other cities in the Hubei Province gradu-
ally adopted the same restrictions as Wuhan, and the other
provinces adopted relatively mild restrictions. In China,
about 60.8% of confrmed cases were located in Wuhan
and 82.4% were located in the Hubei Province [2]. Since
January 27, 2020, the number of new cases per day was
over 1000, and on February 12, it reached the peak and at
least 15,152 cases were confrmed. Since February 22, the
number of cases had never been more than 648 [2]. From
March 6, the number of confrmed cases started to drop
below 100 [2].
An epidemic may cause psychological pressure on
pregnant women living in the epidemic area. From pre-
vious studies on severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS), which is related to COVID-19, pregnant women
were more likely to have an adverse pregnancy outcome
when compared to women who were not pregnant [4–8].
Therefore, it is thought that pregnant women are more
susceptible to COVID-19 than the general population and
deserve more attention. During the COVID-19 pandemic,
a series of restrictions have been taken in China, espe-
cially in Wuhan, the center of the outbreak. Therefore, it
may make be difcult for pregnant women to receive rou-
tine obstetric examinations, and the treatment of pregnant
women with COVID-19 may be complicated. Considering
the above-mentioned factors, COVID-19 may likely afect
the mental health of pregnant women. Until now, many
other studies presented conficting conclusions about the
overall increase or non-increasing incidence of post-trau-
matic stress disorder caused by depression and diferent
disasters [9–12]. In a recently published cross-sectional