Midwifes - what do you honestly think about people trying for a baby during Covid?

[VinoMerino]

I went to reach out of my precious midwife to ask what she knew about ttc and the vaccine, as I'm getting so much conflicted info but I'm worried she'll judge me for even thinking of deliberately getting pregnant right now. Am I being stupid? Midwives, what are your thoughts on people actively trying to get pregnant during all of this?

@olivehater

Of course I recognize it. That’s why I understand. I understand the need to try for a baby. But plenty of people do have time on their side and don’t give the fact they are putting staff at risk a second thought. I just think that ought to be involved in people’s decision making process. Even if it is considered for a second and discarded.

We have a lot of sonographers close to retirement in my department and there is a lot of low morale. One has already gone off with stress. We have no screens and no ppe beyond surgical masks. I can see their being a staffing crisis shortly. It is one of the highest risk jobs in term of covid because of the extended amount of time we are face to face with a patient. We also have partners in all our scans now.

Beyond belief the op asked medical professionals who are going to work every day and putting themselves in the firing line what their opinion was and that is mine. I am sorry if you do not agree with it. But I am allowed to have a personal opinion even if don’t divulge it to patients. I am extremely professional. Thanks very much. I don’t understand the sonographer ffs comment. Do you think my profession is not worthy of and opinion? I do have my own family to go home to every day.

No, I don’t think your profession is worthy of an opinion on people’s reproductive choices. I think it’s entirely unprofessional and immoral to share that opinion and link it to the fact that you’re a sonographer. I don’t think you would do it in a real life professional setting, even in the hypothetical scenario that someone asked, because you’d know it was inappropriate and there is a good reason for that.

Well that is your opinion. I disagree as I think you should consider the staff that will be there for you when you make your choices. I will be there for patients as I have been throughout this. Clearly you don’t think nhs staff matter when it comes to what is going on in your own life. That is a very selfish place to come from.

@olivehater So where do you draw the line then? Should smokers not be able to access the NHS because their actions are "selfish"? Should people who willingly get in a car and get into a crash not be treated because they chose to put themselves at risk?

You say women should wait until the summer but that will have been said this time last year too. A year on and things are looking no better, a women could have put off TTC last march, conceive this summer and still have a baby during restrictions next winter.

It isn't selfish for a woman to have a baby. I would hope these opinions don't seep out through your bedside manner with patients you are judging.

Oh no, not the magic S-word! Selfish not to care what the sonographer might think of one’s reproductive choices and timing if you really are a sonographer you’re in the wrong job.

user1471462428 - I don’t think that scaring pregnant women about still births is very helpful.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774088

“There was no evidence of any increase in stillbirths regionally or nationally during the COVID-19 pandemic in England when compared with the same months in the previous year and despite variable community SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates in different regions.”

www.rcog.org.uk/en/news/rcog-responds-to-latest-ons-stillbirth-data/

In England and Wales, the stillbirth rate decreased from 4.0 stillbirths per 1,000 total births in 2019 to 3.9 in the first three quarters (Jan to Sept) of 2020, in line with the long-term trend.

There were 1,835 stillbirths in the first three quarters (Jan to Sept) of 2020, 130 fewer than in the first three quarters of 2019.

Commenting on the ONS data, Dr Edward Morris, President of The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said:

"It’s encouraging to see that the number of stillbirths happening in England and Wales is continuing to fall.

Honestly, when I conceived (unplanned after dd was two and a half years of ttc and ivf) last July, we thought things were looking up. Vaccines were being developed. Case numbers were low.

Call me selfish for wanting to give my dd a sibling I didn't dare to hope for. Then I guess I'm selfish.

The comment about complaints about lack of partner involvement? I think it has to do with the nhs being on its knees and partners acting as carers. Without partners, care san come woefully short - just look at the current thread about (lack of) care women have received after difficult births / csections... clear to see more resources are needed and the nhs isn't forthcoming.

Jesus I have don nothing but get excited for each and every patient I have scanned and love doing it. Love song their pics and sing them get excited. I spent the other night crying over a patient that might lose their baby. If people think I would do anything otherwise it is very sad.

I gave an honest opionion that was asked for on whether medical staff though whether now is the best time to ttc and I stated that I understood there are circumstances when I understand when people wouldn’t delay.

I don’t apologise for asking for people to consider staff for a second when making their choices.

Clearly that is not allowed on here despite it being an opinion forum. I will just go back to doing my job with love.

@laura2109

Well, people can't really be stopped from TTC, besides it's not really surprising that there'd be an increase during the pandemic... People reconsider what's really important to them, and being confined, presumably people quickly run out of things to do 😂

I find it surprising that there would be an increase during a pandemic. As for people running out of things to do words fail me.

I remember in March last year posters saying "oh go ahead and try for a baby, in 9 months things will be back to normal". I thought at the time it was a pretty stupid thing to say and here we are nearly a year later and things are certainly nowhere near normal.

Sorry but I think it is selfish to even think about having a baby at the moment but then having children is selfish really

We were trying pre pandemic. It took us 11 months to conceive and I'm 35 in a few months. I didn't want to end up childless because we'd stopped trying due to the pandemic, but accept that things will be different. If I was younger we'd probably have postponed but you never know what's around the corner.

lynsey91 - why do you spend so much time posting on a parenting forum if you are child free? Fine that you’re childfree but why keep posting that parents are selfish?

@WalrusWife I’m not trying to scare anyone. I thought there had been a rise but that data shows there hasn’t so thank you for sharing it.
I have seen several news reports of women who have needed ICU care whilst pregnant which would put me off but I guess that it’s about balancing risks. I would love a third but I think the impact on my existing children would be too great if I had to be admitted.

@Fefifoefum

Not a midwife but just a comment. The moaning has to stop now, women (and fathers of the baby) are going into this with their eyes wide open, they know the services are not what they were pre Covid (rightly or wrongly), your family/friends may not meet baby, there may not be baby groups/ health visitors etc etc. So then complaining that all of that happened when they conceived purposefully to me is just wasted breath.

That's like saying to complain about your children misbehaving is "wasted breath" when you chose to conceive them. No, it's not. It's natural human behaviour to vent about stressful situations, and it helps some people. So let them do what they need to do to cope in highly stressful circumstances and take your judgment elsewhere.

I follow a MW on insta and she’s just had a miscarriage. So... she is a MW, in a pandemic, who actively planned to get pregnant. Life must still go on.

Not sure why people come onto the specified Pregnancy forum to have a go at pregnant women. What do you want us to do, have an abortion to please a random, anonymous internet person?

@WalrusWife

Not sure why people come onto the specified Pregnancy forum to have a go at pregnant women. What do you want us to do, have an abortion to please a random, anonymous internet person?

Quite.

@olivehater

I am not a midwife but work as a sonographer.

If you want my real honest opinion. I think unless you don’t have a lot of time left biologically holding off trying right now is the better thing to do.

Every hospital interaction have is a risk to you and a risk to all the staff that you come into contact with. If you can delay to the summer I would.
People are getting their cancer treatments and operations delayed right now. It seems stupid to be inviting the need to go to hospitals when you don’t have to. Every day I go to work I put myself at risk. And I am happy to. But I do think some people don’t even consider that side of things.

But of course I understand if you are running out out time to have children it would be a difficult choice to make.

By this logic, as a mental health professional, I'm going to have to ask people to stop becoming mentally unwell because me and my staff team are struggling to manage the inpatient wards we work on. More patients, more risk to me and my staff team. So if everyone could just not become mentally unwell and require hospital treatment, and think of the staff team who will be supporting you, that would be great, thanks.

Oh no, that's right, I forgot. It doesn't work like that. Because as an NHS professional I don't get to dictate other people's need for services. I just provide that service because it is required and it's what I get paid for.

You know as well as I do that is not the same. I don’t know why am bothering explaining. If you are mentally unwell you are mentally unwell and don’t choose that. So that is not the same logic.

I haven’t dictated anything to anyone. I just suggested that is might be wise to delay ttc a few months at the moment if you felt you were able to do so because of the current dire situation. I personally would not want to experience a misscarriage for instance at this current time. It is not a good time to be in early pregnancy if you can help it. It was my honest opinion, which was what the op asked for. On a daily basis when I am scanning people it doesn’t really cross my mind how or why they got pregnant. I just get on with my job and enjoy the good bits of it as I have always done throughout.
Clearly it was a mistake for me to proffer any kind of opinion on a pregnancy board. So will bow out now as I don’t enjoy being vilified when I have done nothing but work my ass off this year.
In fact I might give mumsnet a break too as people love to ask for opinions at the moment and then attack people and call them a bad person when they have one they may differ to theirs just a tiny bit instead.

Wow I think @olivehater has got a lot of unfair grief here. The OP specifically asked for opinions like hers and I don’t think it’s unreasonable. She’s not saying you shouldn’t ttc if there are reasons why you have to now, but more that if you have the option of waiting then you could add consideration for the hospital staff to the list of points in favour of a delay.

I gave birth in lockdown in November (conceived pre covid) and had excellent care, but really wouldn’t choose that experience again, if I had the choice. Lots of people don’t have the choice though and that’s fine.

I had my baby in summer and whilst I love my baby, being oregano this, having baby and then having maternity leave during covid has been pretty rubbish. Hardly any family has met her and I’m really lonely during the week. There’s pretty much no support from god or hvs either. We want another and don’t want a huge gap but we won’t even consider trying for our second until the pandemic is over. I have time on my side though, if I was older I might think differently.

Being pregnant*

My miscarriage was due to an unplanned pregnancy. Yes I then had to go through the treatment alone at the hospital but I was only there for about 4 hours all in over 2 days then I was home and with dh. I actually think having dh with me would've made it harder. That baby wouldve been born in December when we were going back into lockdown etc.

This one will be born in May when I'm hoping restrictions will be lifted a bit due to the amount of people being vaccinated. If not then I'll deal with that when the time comes.

I read today that my hospital is having birth partners there throughout labour and then 2hrs after and then 3hrs to visit the next day after being on ward. When I look back to when dd was born dh was there about those hours due to when I was taken in and discharged the next day. So all being well with the birth we will manage the timing fine. I'm not sure if its set 3hrs so I would ask that when I am there so that he will be there when I am getting out.

However that's their rules from today. They will be reviewed in 4 weeks time

Also 1st lockdown happened in March. Many women would've been pregnant long before the virus even started. How can people look down on them for having a baby during a pandemic when they had no idea it was going to happen?

So many people in the wrong job. A "sonographer" who mentions people struggling to get cancer treatment which has nothing to do with pregnancy or the maternity units, its not like someone getting pregnant is taking away from cancer treatment ffs such a stupid thing to even bring up.

No its not selfish to have a baby during a pandemic. We are humans and as humans the only point as a species is to reproduce and keep the species going. Not everyone has the luxury of waiting and even someone young can face a long fertility journey so who the fuck are these supposed medical staff with a crystal ball. And someone says hold off until summer, why? Did your crystal ball tell you everything will be normal again in the summer?

You will find most of the shit spouted on these boards will be by people who already have kids btw.

Like others posters I also know a midwife who has become pregnant herself during the pandemic.

I’d imagine their views will vary just like anybody else.

I did work in that field years ago and would not dream judging someone's personal choices.
Midwives are here to help you to have a healthy,safe pregnancy and to safely deliver the baby.