It’s meant to be one of the happiest times of your life, the moment when you meet your baby for the first time, but some pregnant women in the U.S. will face this event alone.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic many hospitals are implementing strict no visitor policies in a bid to keep people safe.
Hospitals across the nation are telling women they have to labor without their loved ones by their side and are banning spouses, partners, family and outside support such as doulas from entering the delivery room.
According to CBS News expectant Massachusetts mom Ana Arteaga, took to Facebook to write about the worrying new rules: “Just found out that because of new hospital restrictions, I can only have one visitor with me when I give birth … aka my husband. I never thought in a million years that I wouldn’t have my mom with me during one of the most important days/moments of my life. Just devastated.”
Just a few days after her post she told CBS News: “My clinic called this morning to tell me that Alex can no longer come to my prenatal appointment on Friday and also mentioned my hospital is considering restricting all visitors to include the one currently allowed for laboring patients.
“And this could happen at any moment. I’m terrified and feel a complete loss of control. Going into a hospital to labor and deliver my first child completely alone is setting up the experience to be traumatic and likely unsafe … What should be one of the most significant and happiest days of our lives is turning into a nightmare.”
A spokesman from one hospital in New York which has also banned partners from delivery rooms said protecting their patients had to take priority.
“We do not take this decision lightly, but these are unprecedented times that require unprecedented steps to protect our patients, their families and their new babies,” Mt. Sinai Health System said, according to the New York Times.
Some women are now looking to switch doctors very late into their pregnancies so they can deliver in a hospital that still allows visitors.
Ana said she even considered a home birth but the cost was too much.
“Hiring an experienced midwife for a home birth could be at least $3,800,” she says. “That’s the rate I was just given now. And with everything happening and so much financial insecurity, I don’t know if that’s something we can comfortably afford at the moment.”
A petition calling for a change in these rules has attracted more than 480,000 signatures.
“Fundamentally, risks for the people laboring alone will increase substantially,” the petition said.
“Not only can partners and spouses provide physical and emotional comfort during labor and postpartum, they are also essential in alerting staff when something has gone wrong and the laboring patient cannot notify nurses themselves, like in the event of an eclamptic seizure or a fainting episode.”
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