During the early days of the pandemic, healthcare professionals were under a great amount of stress not knowing the best ways to care for COVID-positive patients and working hours like never before. Because of these reasons and a multitude of more,  newborn and prenatal care providers suffered a great deal of burnout while trying to care for their patients during the pandemic.

According to a study conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine, healthcare professionals who care for prenatal and newborn patients found themselves dealing with a burnout on scales that they had never experience before the coronavirus pandemic came to be.

RELATED: What A Pregnant Doctor Has To Say About The Coronavirus

To determine what the level of burnout was in the early days of the pandemic, researchers sent out a survey in June 2020 to 673 doctors and nurses across the United States. 288 of the survey recipients responded and their results were published on March 16 in the Journal of Perinatology.

According to Medical Xpress, of the 288 respondents, 66% reported feelings of being burned out. Further still, 73% expressed concern for co-workers who appeared to be more burned out than the healthcare professional taking the survey. On the positive side, however, 70% were "hopeful about the future," and 83% felt "uplifted" by their co-workers.

Medical burnout is defined as, "the result of a high-stakes, demanding job that frequently exposes them to human suffering," according to NurseJournal. This causes a medical professional to have "emotional and physical exhaustion" and feelings of being unattached when it comes to dealing with patients. If left unchecked medical burnout can be detrimental to patients and the healthcare professional alike.

What these results equate to, according to the study's senior author, Jochen Profit, MD, is a level of burnout "2.5 times the rates we observed in pre-pandemic samples," per Stanford Medicine News Center.

Those who work with prenatal and newborn patients are on the frontlines of medicine. However, they did not face infection levels other healthcare professionals did who were working directly with COVID-positive patients. This did not mean that there were no other stressors that led to burnout.

According to Stanford Medicine News Center, changing electronic medical systems twice in the first few months of the pandemic, patients who were understandably concerned and stressed about their health and the health of their unborn babies, and constantly changing medical protocols led to consistent feelings of burnout.

Regardless of what the causes were of the burnout were for healthcare professionals, what this study shows is that there need to be strategies in place to handle those who are on the verge of just feeling like they have no more to give.

According to Medical Xpress, California neonatal units are working to "improve workplace culture" to lessen the cases of burnout. Other states need to follow suit because as Profit states, per Stanford Medical News Center, without change there will be a "wave of these problems coming" and those in healthcare need to be prepared to combat it.

NEXT: NHS Doctor Recounts Being On Frontline Of The Pandemic While Pregnant

Source: Stanford Medical News Center, Medical Xpress, NurseJournal, Journal of Perinatology