The coronavirus crisis
is throwing many pregnant women's birth plans up in the air and leading some
health trusts to increase home births.
The image captured
hearts on social media 10 days ago. Faolán, Gaelic for "little wolf",
was born in Drogheda in Ireland on Saturday 14 March and a few days later his
grandfather dropped round to see him - through the window. He stayed for 10 minutes,
gazing at his first grandchild.
It was hard to have
family so close and yet separated by a pane of glass when they wanted more than
anything to hold Faolán, says his mother, Emma Dillon Gallagher, who went into
labour before Ireland's lockdown and emerged from hospital into a different
world.
Like parents of newborns in the UK, Emma and her husband Mìcheál
then self-isolated for 14 days, while visiting family members took turns at the
window. A tweet of the photograph above, with the caption
"three generations of social distancing", has since collected nearly
800000 likes.
But this is just one
of many changes brought about by the arrival of the coronavirus.
For some pregnant
women it has opened up the prospect of having to give birth alone, or of being
unable to have the Caesarean section they were hoping for. For others it's a
case of not being able to have the baby in a midwife-led birth centre but in a
hospital instead - or even at home.
While some health
trusts are clamping down on home births because of the virus, others are
planning to deliver babies this way whenever it's medically safe.
Nikki Dennett-Thorpe
gave birth to baby Stanley a few days after Emma Dillon Gallagher, on 19 March
- the day before all UK schools and nurseries were closed indefinitely. She
needed a Caesarean section, so when she developed a persistent cough her
hospital in Eastbourne suddenly had to make special arrangements.
She waited in an
isolation room, ready in her hospital gown and compression socks as the staff
tried to find an operating theatre which wouldn't be needed immediately
afterwards - allowing time for it to be decontaminated before the next patient.
Nikki worried that her
son's first sight of the world would be disturbing. "I thought, when
Stanley comes out he is going to be faced with mummy and daddy with surgical
masks on," she says it is very painful for me
But in the end, the
consultant decided it would be safe to postpone the Caesarean section for 24
hours, while Nikki was tested for coronavirus - and fortunately she got the
all-clear.
Nikki and her husband
then went into isolation for 14 days, with Stanley and their toddler. Like
Faolán during his isolation, Stanley has yet to be introduced to the wider
family.
Women who have chosen
to have a Caesarean section when it isn't a medical necessity - because they
are anxious about natural birth, for example - are in some cases being told
that it may have to be delayed, or even cancelled, says the charity Birthright.
One woman who called
the group said she'd been told she would have to wait and see if there was
capacity to have a C-Section on the day, and may have to have an induction
instead.
Coronavirus, pregnancy and birth
The NHS says that if you are pregnant you may be at higher risk from coronavirus and should only leave the
house for very limited purposes
The Royal College of
Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) says "pregnant women do not appear
to be more likely to be seriously unwell than other healthy adults if they
develop the new coronavirus".
There is no evidence
to suggest an increased risk of miscarriage if a pregnant woman becomes
infected, according to the RCOG, and "given current evidence, it is
considered unlikely that if you have the virus it would cause problems with the
baby's development".
It adds: "In all
reported cases of newborn babies developing coronavirus very soon after birth,
the baby was well."
Source: RCOG guidance for pregnant women
Health trusts
currently have competing priorities. One is to limit transmission of the virus
by keeping people out of hospital as much as possible. Another is to divert
staff to help treat Covid-19 patients, and a third is to free up space for
these patients to be treated.
It's for the last
reason that a number of midwife-led Birth Centres have closed and been turned
into isolation wards. In some areas, women will now be giving birth in a
hospital environment instead, but in others the plan is to switch to home
births in all cases where this is medically possible.
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