OTTAWA -- Bringing a new life into the world comes with a lot of excitement and understandable nerves. Adding in a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic creates a new element of anxiety for soon-to-be moms.
“The thing that we’re trying to focus on is keeping her safe and keeping her safe until everything sort of settles itself,” said Braiden Turner, who is expecting her second child in less than two weeks.
“There are a lot of concerns for me and fear but we’re trying to stay positive and we’re trying to just take the best out of all of this and be safe, keep washing our hands, keep following all the guidelines,” Turner said.
Krista Mostert will also deliver her daughter during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re excited, just trying to stay positive at this point,” Mostert said, adding some pre-natal visits have been impacted.
“The OB likes to see you once a week leading up to [your] due date and last week and this week’s appointments were both cancelled just to not put us at any extra risk.”
In a statement, the Ottawa Hospital says it is taking “all necessary precautions to care for pregnant women coming to the hospital, protecting their safely along with the safety of staff. This includes appropriate personal protective equipment, and visitor restrictions that will limit the number of people coming in and out of the hospital.”
East Ottawa Midwives are also adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic: adding screening and offering phone and online consultations, among other things.
“With this unexpected change in restrictions people are having to redevelop their birth plan and re-think and re-consider who is going to be there for the labour and the birth part so people are having to choose,” said midwife Geneviève Gagnon.
“We limit the physical assessment where previously midwives would spend 30 to 50 minutes per appointment we’ve cut that down to 10 minutes to just do the essentials,” Gagnon said, adding midwives will continue to do visits in the home after the baby is born but that the number of visits to each house has been reduced.
