US Pregnant Stress Fear Contracting COVID-19 and Isolation Baby

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased stress in pregnant women in the US, who already had the highest maternal mortality rate even before the pandemic.

Research before COVID-19 had shown that US pregnant women have higher levels of anxiety and depression than Dutch women and higher levels of psychological stress than British women.

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Celestene Barbosa Leiker, lead author, states that pregnant women are stressed about contracting the coronavirus. Some have expressed fears that just going to the hospital to deliver can lead to contracting the virus and be forced to isolate from their baby.

For the study, the research team analyzed survey responses from over 160 pregnant and postpartum women between April 28 and June 30, 2020. The survey had both quantitative and qualitative responses.

Findings revealed that 52% of pregnant women and 49% of postpartum women were worried about their babies contracting the virus, and 46% had asked for extra information on COVID-19 protocols from the hospital where they planned to deliver or had delivered their babies.

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Many serious concerns were reported in the qualitative portion of the survey. Some were -

1) Contracting COVID-19 and dying.

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2) Contracting the virus in the hospital during delivery and isolating from their newborn due to COVID-19 policies

3) Keeping their partners out of the birthing room

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Barbosa-Leiker reports that in the beginning, hospitals had varying policies, but now the recommendation is to keep babies and mothers together.

The survey also revealed that 27% of pregnant women did not have access to healthy food, and 25% had missed prenatal appointments. In addition, 19% reported their income had reduced, 9% had been laid off, and 10% reported that someone in their household had lost their job.

In the study, pregnant women appeared to be more stressed than postpartum women who had already delivered. This may be because pregnant women were less likely to practice stress-coping behaviors like exercising, taking breaks from the news, and making time to relax.

Women of color and low-income pregnant women had greater stress levels and a lack of social support, revealing an increase in health disparities that existed even before the pandemic.

"We know that prenatal stress impacts fetal development, so these are huge concerns," Barbosa-Leiker said.

She believes that the findings emphasize the need for more resources and support for pregnant women, especially during the pandemic.

"Health care providers should continue to talk with moms about all their stressors as their mental health and emotional well-being is key during this time," she said. "Providers can keep resources on hand. For instance, if they learn there is job loss in the family, they could quickly refer them to wraparound services."

She further adds, "We heard a lot from our participants that they were stressed because they were afraid of offending family members. Keeping in mind that new parents are doing everything they can to keep their baby and themselves safe and healthy, we should try to support the parents' wishes about how they want to deal with visitors during the pandemic."

Source-Medindia