Stay-at-home orders across the country have turned millions of parents into frontier women and men. Parents are making sourdough at home. They’re teaching algebra at home.
And they’re delivering babies at home.
The novel coronavirus has made hospital births less desirable for a couple of reasons.
First is the worry about infection. If you see a headline about a young, healthy adult dying of the virus, chances are it’s a nurse or doctor. Prolonged indoor proximity to multiple infected people seems like the best way to get the bug. That makes hospitals scary.
“I was really scared just to go to the hospital because for pregnant women, it’s very risky getting the virus,” one pregnant mother told the New York Times.
A second reason for mothers not to go to the labor and delivery ward of your local hospital: Fathers might not be allowed.
Hospitals around the country have announced policies barring anyone from the delivery room except for the mother, the baby, and some hospital staff. That has left women scared and alone during one of the toughest feats many humans ever undertake, or simply saddened that their husbands missed their child’s first moments in the outside world.
Irate or despondent fathers have been spotted yelling at hospital staff imposing this rule.
Thus the rush in demand for home births.
In March, Google searches for “home birth” hit their highest frequency since Gwyneth Paltrow installed a birthing pool in her home in March 2004. Midwives are reporting unprecedented demand, including a distressing number of last-minute calls — home births with midwives are typically planned for months, with lots of coaching.
At the same time as the rising demand, midwives are apprehensive about visiting too many patients for fear of becoming spreaders themselves.
The result is likely to be a spat of babies delivered at home by fathers. When complications arise, these deliveries will end with ambulance rides for the mother and the newborn, which is not great.
When things go smoothly, on the other hand, the bathroom birth will provide a great story and the obvious highlight of an otherwise grim spring.
