Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal health research: emerging trends and bibliometric analysis

Maternal health research (MHR) includes studies of pregnancy care, maternal and infant mortality, and family planning. This study examined maternal health research before, after, and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A bibliometric analysis of 11,422 papers in the field of MHR literature from the Scopus database that were published between 2016 and 2023. The MHR has increased annually by 10.45%. The number of publications has grown significantly during the previous eight years. In 2016, there were 1036 articles published, followed by 1868 in 2022 and 1086 in 2023. Following COVID-19, there was an increase in publications between 2020 and 2023, and productivity peaked in 2022 with 1868 articles of all publications throughout the data period. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Ethiopia are the top productive countries in MHR. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly contributed to the thematic expansion of the MHR and the network analysis revealed distinct variations in the number of researchers. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ethiopia has experienced significant growth in the field of MHR. Research on MHR currently focuses on antenatal care, maternal health, pregnancy, public health, and preterm birth.