COVID-19 Is Upending Parents’ Birth Plans
Every birth of a human baby is difficult—difficult to prepare for, difficult to execute, difficult to adjust to afterward. Living under lockdown conditions while a pandemic encircles the globe is also difficult, logistically as well as psychologically. At this very moment, hundreds of thousands of pregnant Americans are preparing to do both of those things at the same time.
Each day in the United States, more than 10,000 babies, on average, are born. A lot of things will change in the U.S. under the new protocols aimed to curb the spread of COVID-19, but this fact will not. Schools, churches, day-care centers, bars, and restaurants will be closed for weeks or months; travel will be severely interrupted; and entire sports seasons will be postponed and rescheduled for the fall. But babies will still be born—even though the conditions under which people prepare, give birth, and care for their new babies will be radically altered. The coronavirus is adding practical and emotional layers of overwhelm to a time that is, even under normal circumstances, overwhelming.
THE NINTH MONTH
Elise Batscha is expecting her second baby, a little brother for her two-year-old son, in early April. As recently as a month ago, she was planning to spend her last few weeks of pregnancy relaxing and mentally preparing herself for kid number two—spending a
