I was starting to really freak out about it, BUT it’s important to bear in mind that the limited evidence so far from China shows NO elevated risk to pregnant women or our babies (unlike with the flu for example where the risks can be pretty serious to both mother and baby).
I was reading an article yesterday that went into a lot of detail about the cases so far in China (although there have only been a few dozen) and the risk of the mother developing serious symptoms seems no higher than any other women of the same age (I.e. pretty low for most of us) AND the virus doesn’t seem to be transmitted from mother to baby. A small number of the babies were born with a fever and slight shortness of breath, but they recovered after a couple of days and mild treatment and tested negative for the virus. And most of the babies were completely fine. And so far, babies who do get the virus seem to only suffer mild symptoms.
So while obviously it is a good idea to do everything we can to keep ourselves safe (given that evidence is limited atm, plus You never know if you’re going to be in that minority that does have serious symptoms) , there’s probably no need to panic. Although don’t get me wrong, I am still going to self-isolate as much as possible and take all the recommended precautions.
One thing the article did say was that the Chinese women who had the virus were separated from their babies for 2 weeks as precaution, which is pretty upsetting, BUT there was a quote from someone from the RCOG in Britain saying that at the moment they wouldn’t do that here because the negative effects on mother and child of separation would probably be worse, and also the virus does not seem to pass into breast milk, so they would let you have your baby with you!
Of course there are other worries too, like what if the hospital resources are overwhelmed when we’re in labour, and all the other stuff. I actually wondered, if it gets really bad, if they would make us have our babies at home if there are no risk factors! So as to avoid catching anything at the hospital. I hope not... I’m also feeling pretty sad about the fact that it’s looking like none of our parents will be able to come and meet the baby for at least a few weeks, possibly a couple of months after the birth. My mum works in a school and would need to take the train to get here, so I feel like she’s probably a walking contamination unit atm :( and MIL is in France so she’s not even allowed out of her own front door apart from a few special reasons. So that’s all a bit sad... then there are things like, will we be able to get hold of baby supplies if there’s something we forgot to buy...
www.newscientist.com/article/2237352-coronavirus-what-we-know-so-far-about-risks-to-pregnancy-and-babies/