References
‘I just had to park up at the hospital and leave her’: A retrospective interview study of pregnancy, birth and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions
Abstract
Lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on many aspects of people's lives. In the UK, evidence showed higher rates of stress and depression among parents during restrictions. Disruption to early years education affected preschoolers' language and cognitive development, and associations between parental health and child behaviour were apparent. The longer-term consequences on infants born during the pandemic restrictions, who are now approaching school age, are not yet known. This study focused on parents' retrospective reflections of the pandemic, and aimed to explore the longer-term effects of lockdown restrictions on children and families. The study followed a retrospective, qualitative interview design. Recruitment sampling ensured views were gathered from people of different genders, sexual orientations, birth/adoptive status and geographic areas. Seventeen participants were interviewed. Three overarching themes emerged: navigating antenatal and postnatal care alone; difficult decisions when caring for an infant and the long shadow on the family. Major issues which emerged included attending antenatal appointments – and in some cases giving birth – alone; limited postnatal care; disrupted parental leave; changes in employment and strained relationships. In the event of a future pandemic, restrictions should accommodate couples from the same household more pragmatically, and children's developmental checks should not be deprioritised. Finally, as part of post-pandemic provision, in-person antenatal and postnatal care and consistent early years provision remain vital services which must be acknowledged
Lockdown and associated restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on many aspects of our lives that went far beyond the obvious primary effects of serious illness or death (Ioannidis, 2020). In the UK, some groups were disproportionately affected; for example, people of colour and those of other minority ethnicities were at greater risk of death owing to complex factors including overcrowded housing and poor access to health services (Mamluk and Jones, 2020). Older adults also experienced difficulties accessing services, along with sleep disturbances and a reduction of physical activity (Lebrasseur et al, 2021), and those with long-term conditions had an increased risk of death owing to their comorbidities (Adab et al, 2022). People with intellectual disabilities experienced heightened anxiety and struggled to navigate remote consultations (Hughes and Anderson, 2022). For those with socioeconomic disadvantage, the pandemic amplified existing structural inequalities in income and poverty and socioeconomic inequalities in education and skills (The COVID decade: Understanding the long-term societal impacts of COVID-19, 2021). Pregnant women may not have been vaccinated owing to their continued exclusion from much of the pre-approval drug development process (Abbas-Hanif et al, 2022). Schooling arrangements were changed (Stone et al, 2022), GCSE and A level examinations were cancelled (McCluskey et al, 2021) and university teaching became remote (McGivern and Shepherd, 2022).
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