Lived experiences of risk among pregnant women in Baybay City, Leyte during the COVID-19 pandemic: A phenomenological study

Giving birth is risky by nature, and this makes pregnant women one of the most vulnerable individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. For pregnant women in Baybay City, Leyte, conceiving a child during a COVID-19 pandemic means: living with constant anxiety and worry, living with the fear of the unknown, and being the most vulnerable people in a medical emergency. These fears and worries revolved around hospital settings, financial difficulties, isolation, labor, and delivery while their feeling of vulnerability meant contracting the virus easily and having to undergo stricter protocols. Meanwhile, they had varied perceptions of COVID-19 risk. These were classified as positive or negative. Informants with positive perceptions were those that viewed COVID-19 as not personally risky but rather showed a hopeful view of its risk. They view its risk as something not too dangerous because of the vaccines available and that its symptoms are simple to cure. On the other hand, informants with negative perceptions view COVID-19 risks as something that will have a bad effect on them. They link pregnancy to susceptibility to COVID-19 and foresee premature birth, negative effects on the fetus development, and child-related death as negative results of COVID-19. Pregnant women also perceived COVID-19 risk deliberatively, affectively, and experientially. This indicates that they take the most deliberate approach to managing COVID-19 risk. Informants demonstrated affective reactions like worry and fear as they estimate the risks COVID-19 may pose to them. These factors together form their experiential risk perception of COVID-19 as an encounter with danger.