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Navigation of Knowledge: the Impact of COVID-19 on Pregnancy-a Bibliometric Analysis

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Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, countries around the world have faced huge economic and social burdens. SARS-COV-2 may exist in nature for a long time due to the diversity of its different variants. Pregnant women and newborns as vulnerable groups will suffer serious health threats. Bibliometrics as a method of summarizing publications can be used to extract important achievements and hot topics in this field. We search the target publications from the Web of Science Core collection database, and then use Microsoft Office Excel, CiteSpace, R, Scimago, and VOSviewer for visual analysis. Finally, we included 1709 publications from 2998 institutions in 104 countries. The number of publications has exploded since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. Among them, the USA, China, Britain, and Italy have higher quantity and quality. We identified important journals, authors, keywords, and references in this field. Anxiety, stress, risk of pregnancy complications, and vaccine safety and acceptance have received extensive attention from scholars during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be urgent issues to be addressed in the future. Most of the current studies fall into the category of case reports and clinical data analysis. COVID-19 has been linked to serious pregnancy complications and mental illness, and vaccination during pregnancy is recommended to protect both mother and fetus. Further large-scale cohort studies and discovery of molecular mechanisms are needed in this field.

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Data Availability

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all potential reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Reproductive and Stem Cell Engineering, School of Basic Medical Science, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Jingrouzi Wu, Jingnan Liao, Guangxiu Lu, Fei Gong & Ge Lin

  2. Reproductive and Genetic Hospital of CITIC-Xiangya, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Jingrouzi Wu, Jingnan Liao, Yuan Li, Guangxiu Lu, Fei Gong & Ge Lin

  3. Pediatric Department of the 3rd Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Mingyi Zhao

  4. Hunan Normal University School of Medicine, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Buzi Cao

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  1. Jingrouzi Wu
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  4. Yuan Li
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Contributions

MZ and GL conceived and designed the study. JW drafted the manuscript. MZ, GL, and JW reviewed and revised the manuscript. JL, YL, BC, and JW designed the data collection tool, collected the data, and performed the data analysis. FG, BC, and JW produced the charts. All authors approved the final submission of the manuscript and agreed to be responsible for all aspects of the work.

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Correspondence to Ge Lin or Mingyi Zhao.

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Wu, J., Cao, B., Liao, J. et al. Navigation of Knowledge: the Impact of COVID-19 on Pregnancy-a Bibliometric Analysis. Reprod. Sci. 30, 3548–3562 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-023-01312-x

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