The Prime Minister has just put the UK into lockdown in a bid to slow the spread of Covid-19 but what does that mean for expectant mothers? Many women are having to throw their birth plans out the window as they imminently await the arrival of their newborn.
Journalist Hattie Gladwell, 24, from West Sussex, is pregnant with her first child and is due on 21 April, 2020. However, she has chosen to have an elective caesarean on 15 April due to having inflammatory bowel disease.
‘My plan was to have a calm caesarean with my partner, then have an hour of skin-to-skin with my baby and for my partner to have an hour, [too],’ Hattie tells Grazia. ‘I [had] planned to have my parents and my in-laws come to meet the baby. Unfortunately, now, only my partner is allowed on the ward and no other visitors.
‘I will be in the hospital for two days or so, depending on how I recover from the operation, with nobody coming to see me or support me bar my partner,' she says. 'He was also meant to stay overnight with me, but he’s not allowed to do that anymore either.’
Hattie also fears that she might contract coronavirus while visiting the hospital to give birth.
‘[My biggest concern] is that he’s going to get the virus, or that I’m going to get the virus and not be allowed near him so that I don’t pass it on,’ she says. ‘I’m terrified that we’re going to be separated or that my partner is going to come down with symptoms and will not be allowed at the birth. It’s a very scary time.’
There is not an exact figure for the amount of pregnant women who have contracted the virus, however, on 18 March, the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG) confirmed two cases of a newborn baby testing positive for it. The RCOG do not believe that the virus was contracted prenatally.
'Expert opinion is that the baby is unlikely to be exposed during pregnancy, ' their statement said. 'The UK is conducting near-real-time surveillance of all women who develop Covid-19 during pregnancy and their newborn babies, through well-established systems already used by all maternity units.'
Carmel Lloyd, Head of Education at the Royal College of Midwives, says measures are being implemented to avoid the transmission of coronavirus in hospitals.
‘They're trying to have special areas at hospitals, which are for people with coronavirus and other places, which are not,’ Lloyd explains. ‘That’s a big restructuring going on at the moment.’
Doctors and midwives have been pushing for pregnant women to have consultations via video call in the lead up to the birth, however, Lloyd says that in many cases, those wanting to have a home birth have been advised to come into the hospital instead.
‘What we have heard is that in some places, because of the way they've had to deploy staff, women are being asked to come into a hospital to have their baby rather than being at home,’ she explains. ‘Because you need slightly more resources to have your baby at home than going in the hospital. It does vary around the country and as I say it is very much responding to the staffing situation but I think the important thing is that women will still get the care they require.’
Lloyd says that most expectant mothers have been understanding of the changes because ‘we're in a particularly difficult situation at the moment and it's not that people are trying to be obstructive.’
Elsewhere, campaign groups Birth Companions and Women in Prison have urged the government to release pregnant women serving jail sentences.
‘The vast majority of women in prison pose no risk to the public,’ Dr Kate Paradine, Chief Executive of national charity Women in Prison says. ‘They are usually serving sentences for low-level offences, like theft and have short sentences of only a few weeks or months.
‘We need to start immediate planning for early release, to make sure we can do it in a safe and well-managed way. Any further delay in taking action could have a catastrophic effect.’
Lloyd pointed to the RCOG’s guidelines for pregnant women worried about their safety during this time. There's a full Q&Athat should cover most expectant mothers' concerns.
‘Generally, pregnant women do not appear to be more likely to be severely unwell than other healthy adults if they develop the new coronavirus,’ the RCOG says. ‘It is expected the large majority of pregnant women will experience only mild or moderate cold/flu like symptoms.’
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