Did you have a baby?

Ordinarily, welcoming a new baby is one of life’s most joyous occasions. But for those who gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, the experience was characterized by fear, loneliness and even long-term trauma. “Some new mothers had to undergo treatment for depression and PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder],” reported Ani Jacob, DNP, clinical associate professor in the Adelphi University College of Nursing and Public Health, who spoke to a number of pandemic-era mothers as part of the study “Perceptions of Postpartum Mothers of Their Experiences as a Patient During COVID-19 Crisis: A Phenomenological Study” (Journal of Patient Experience, 2022).¹ Her colleague Karen Mancini, PhD ’16, assistant professor and chair of the Department of Nursing Specialties in the College of Nursing and Public Health, heard similar stories while conducting her own study, “Becoming a Mother During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Time of Resilience and Reflection” (Journal of the American Nurses Association-New York, August 2022).² Together, these two pieces of research illuminate the difficulties—and lingering effects—of giving birth amid an unprecedented burden on America’s healthcare system.

“I’ve always been interested in how people react in childbirth during times of stress,” said Dr. Mancini, who previously studied perinatal nurses’ experiences during Hurricane Sandy. “But there hasn’t been anything like COVID in a hundred years. No one has written about what these mothers were actually going through.” She interviewed 10 women who gave birth during the earliest months of the pandemic. Dr. Jacob, whose interest was piqued specifically by mothers’ isolation in the L&D (labor and delivery) department, interviewed 13 women with delivery dates between March 2020 and May 2020. “The previous studies on this topic were all surveys,” she said. “I wanted to have an actual conversation with the patients.” Both studies utilized a phenomenological approach, which seeks to describe an event from the point of view of the subject. “It was important to get to the heart of what this experience was really like for mothers,” Dr. Mancini added.

According to the participants in Dr. Jacob’s study, social distancing and COVID-19 infection prevention protocols had an adverse effect on their wellbeing. “These women had been planning celebrations with friends and family for nine months, and instead they had to introduce their babies through a window,” she said. Partners were also banned from the room after delivery, resulting in heightened levels of stress, anxiety and unhappiness among new mothers. “I talked to a mother who said she initially wanted more children, but the trauma of this experience totally upended that,” Dr. Jacob remembered.

Dr. Mancini’s study produced comparable themes, with a particular focus on gaps in care. Although hospitals’ COVID-19 precautions “offered a source of reassurance that the facilities were safe,” which relieved mothers’ fears of contagion, feelings of abandonment prevailed. Once admitted, participants were subject to rigorous restrictions, including no visitors, masking during delivery, an abbreviated hospital stay and limited contact with staff. “Most were not visited by a lactation consultant,” the paper notes, leaving mothers with minimal breastfeeding support. “Some mothers were told to fill out questionnaires on postpartum depression without any ensuing psychological care,” Dr. Mancini said. “They felt that the hospitals were just trying to protect themselves and didn’t actually care about their recovery.”

Predicting the next global health emergency may be impossible, but Dr. Mancini believes preparation is the best medicine. “People were completely caught off guard here, just like Hurricane Sandy,” she says. “We need to make sure we have standards of care and education in place for next time, which should continue once mothers have checked out of the hospital. A lot of that fell by the wayside during COVID-19.” Yet, as one mother shared with Dr. Mancini, the stress of giving birth during a pandemic still left room for resiliency: “I’m proud of our family for weathering a crazy, unprecedented storm, and I’m proud of myself for giving birth and then feeding this tiny human and taking care of the rest of my family as best I could.”

Biography

Ani Jacob, DNP

Ani Jacob, DNP

Ani Jacob, DNP, is a clinical associate professor in the College of Nursing and Public Health and a nurse scientist in the Office of the Chief Nurse Executive, Department of Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice, at Northwell Health. She is board certified in Nursing Professional Development.

Karen Mancini, PhD ’16

Karen Mancini, PhD ’16

Karen Mancini, PhD ’16, is assistant professor and chair of the Department of Nursing Specialties in the College of Nursing and Public Health. Her research focuses on maternal and child health, with previously published research examining the lived experience of perinatal nurses who cared for patients during Hurricane Sandy. She teaches Nursing Care of Childbearing Women and Nursing Care of Children.

^{¹Jacob, A., Thomas, T., & Antretter, J. (2022). Perceptions of Postpartum Mothers of Their Experiences as a Patient During COVID-19 Crisis: A Phenomenological Study. Journal of Patient Experience, 9, 23743735221147761. https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735221147761}

^{²Mancini, K. (2022). Becoming a Mother During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Time of Resilience and Reflection. Journal of the American Nurses Association – New York, 2(2), 5–11. https://doi.org/10.47988/janany.89232823.2.2}