NEW YORK (AP) – Pregnancy, birth and life with a newborn in the midst of a pandemic have caused high anxiety, ever-changing hospital protocols and intense isolation for many of the millions of women around the world.
As the pandemic spreads into a second year and economic concern persists, demographers are studying why a child pandemic is anticipated. Meanwhile, women have learned to work through masks and introduce fresh arrivals to loved ones through windows.
Fear, anxiety and chaos were particularly acute in New York in the early months of the pandemic in what was one of the country’s most devastating hot spots.
Whitnee Hawthorne gave birth to her second son on May 7 in a hospital in New York. Ten months later, her baby has not yet met her paternal grandparents, who live in Louisiana.
“Our first son met them in the second week of his life,” said Hawthorne, whose husband was happily with her after the partners’ birth ban was lifted at their hospital a few weeks earlier. of her time.
As a black woman, she said, she decided to leave the state rather than work alone.
“I am very aware of the high maternal death rates for black women, and also after having a negative experience with a nurse during the first birth, I was scared,” Hawthorne said.
Like Hawthorne, Nneoma Maduike was disguised when she gave birth to her second child, a son, on August 1, after a pregnancy full of strangers.
“It simply came to our notice then. The information is evolving as fast as you can imagine, ”said Maduike, who lives in Brooklyn. “I did not know what to do. My husband is a doctor and he still went every day and that brought even more anxiety. ”
Twenty-four hours after a cesarean section, Maduike was given permission to go home. Hospitals at the time were trying to protect new mothers and babies from the virus by mixing them up early, easing the burden on skeletal staff.
While her husband was on hand for the birth, neither of them knew that the hospital would require their newborn to stay in Maduike’s room, rather than the nursery, as a precaution. Her husband went home to be with their eldest child, leaving her to care for the child alone immediately after the operation. Then there was a fight to get her husband back to the hospital for safety reasons.
Of course, there were no visitors, in stark contrast to her first delivery. No friend was allowed to go to the hospital with balloons, flowers and food. Maduike’s mother, who lives in Texas, did not move for an extended stay after the child came home, a tradition in their Nigerian culture. Her mother managed a much shorter visit, but with little time to gather the many ingredients for ji mmiri oku, a yam pepper soup offered to new mothers after birth.
Maduike will not soon forget to meet her child in a mask. “There’s something so sad about that,” she said. “You’re horrified to remove this barrier because you just don’t know.”
Due to pandemic travel restrictions, her father remains stranded in Nigeria and has not yet met her child.
Liz Teich and her husband moved with their 3-year-old child in February 2020 from Brooklyn to New Rochelle, in the suburbs, before she gave birth to her second child about two months later. They landed in an isolation zone in one of the first COVID surges in the United States. The hospital, under pressure from the women who were to deliver there, had just lifted the ban on birth partners in the delivery room when Teich went into labor.
“My husband had to leave the hospital two hours after the birth,” she said. “I was lucky. I had bleeding after my first birth. I was very worried about being alone during a pandemic, when the hospital was understaffed.”
30 hours after the birth, Teich and her baby were at home.
“I did not even take a shower. I was too scared to touch the bathroom. I didn’t know if the virus was transported in the air or if it was on surfaces or even something about the virus. I worked mostly at home because I was too scared to go, “she said.
Teich found herself doubled down in a hospital parking garage during contractions less than two minutes after she circled with her husband looking for a place because valet service was eliminated. He didn’t want to be left alone, fearing he wouldn’t be allowed in alone.
“I thought, you know, if I give birth in a car, it could be safer than in a hospital,” she laughed.
The pain of separation was felt in other ways.
Parham Zar, founder and CEO of the Egg Donor Institute and Surrogate in Los Angeles, said that in the first months of the pandemic, parents expecting 52 surrogate births were affected by travel barriers at his agency alone.
“The vast majority of parents were in China, and while biological parents are routinely present during the child’s birth, they were unable to travel to the United States to join their children. Some surrogates cared for the children for months before they were joined by his biological family, “Zar said.
Jen Guyuron, from Cleveland, gave birth to a daughter, Gigi, in March last year and is pregnant again.
“Nobody knew Gigi and now we’re dating two kids,” she said. “The hospital was practically closed when I entered. I clearly remember telling my husband that it’s best not to cough or sneeze. I was in survival mode. ”
Her mother, who was waiting with her father in their car at the hospital while she was in labor, wrote a poem to Guyuron after Gigi arrived. He inspired Guyuron to write a poem for his new daughter. She turned her words into a children’s book, “The Baby in the Window,” which she self-published as a way to inform other pandemic mothers that they are not alone.
The story looks forward to easier times, when parents are free to let others hold their babies, visit with loved ones without masks and let their children play without pandemic worries.
In Gigi’s case, brothers, grandparents, cousins and friends first met her through the windows of Guyuron’s house. In her parents’ garage were socially spaced tables and tables on her terrace, covered in blankets by a heat lamp.
“There’s a lot of isolated sadness in our homeless homes around,” Guyuron said. “It was very difficult as a new mother. You expect to come home to all these big hugs, happiness and family, and we didn’t have any of that. ”
Since Gigi has largely known only masks on the faces of others, Guyuron wonders if the revealed faces will bother him.
“He only knows masks,” Guyuron said. “It certainly doesn’t scare her.”
___
Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie