March 20, 2020
So… today is technically the first full day of the “stay home” order in California because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am almost 38 weeks pregnant getting ready for my HBAC (home birth after cesarean). I originally wanted to make this post all about how to prepare for a healthy postpartum space, arranging for help as desired and limiting visitors, and honoring the 40 days as many cultures do. Well… a lot of that is now already taken care of for me, but there will also be new challenges. I’ll write about postpartum planning later.
So far this week my family has already been practicing “social distancing” mostly, and staying home. We did go to Torrey Pines beach to walk a few times, went to grocery stores, and the chiropractor. All of these things still seem to fall under the umbrella of being “ok” but I’m not totally sure yet. The call was just made last night to have the “stay at home” order in place for all of California. I think we are going to cut out things like Torrey Pines now but still get our walks in with our toddler while honoring the 6 feet distancing from others.
Yesterday, my birth doula came over for our last “prep” session. It was stressful to even decide if that was ok to do or not… to have her over, but we did and we didn’t touch at all. I was able to cry a bit with her as talking about everything going on sparked a release in me. I can acknowledge that this is stressful while 38 weeks pregnant while also being strong and mentally capable of preparing for birth and staying positive.
I am seeing my midwife (an LM who does home births and birth center births) by Facetime for my 38 week appointment next week after having just seen her this week for my 37 week and all is well.
Having some medical services go virtual and others still being in person, make it hard to differentiate how much I should still be going to or not. I have been regularly going to the chiropractor and acupuncturist throughout this pregnancy so now at the very end, I would like to continue to do so as part of my prenatal care. Luckily my providers are still open as they are medical services and they have verified for me the precautions they are taking in their very small offices.
I have to say, I am trying to look for silver linings in all this and one of those may be that we culturally make a shift towards less “medicalized” births in hospitals for the majority (not all) of women who are low risk as I am seeing numerous women online in all of my pregnancy/birth groups, asking about birth centers or home births to avoid the hospitals right now. Midwives in my area are accepting late transfers and giving discounts to accommodate for the demand. Policy is already very scary for pregnant mothers in hospitals without all this but now it’s even worse. ACOG and WHO are giving different recommendations and hospitals are abiding by different ones, many of which of course are not evidence based because there is no solid evidence with any of this (impact of virus on pregnant women and babies). Some hospitals are doing a two week mother baby separation right at birth for mothers who are COVID-19 positive when there is not actually evidence that this is needed. The repercussions of this on mother and baby are huge! My heart goes out to anyone who experiences this and my hope is that this crisis helps shed more light on the flaws in our OB/hospital model of maternity care system in the US.
If you are pregnant right now and trying to change birth plans/providers/location or just going through the stress of this and want to connect, please reach out! Here is a great link (with numerous links inside it) to stay informed whatever your choices may be for your birth:
Birth and Botox 