The pandemic has reshaped the experience of childbirth in New York hospitals, adding more tension into what is an already uncertain event.
Rebecca Arian, a few hours into labor at a Brooklyn hospital, was balancing on her hands and knees, trying to ease a biting contraction in her lower abdomen with no painkillers.
Then her midwife walked into the room and delivered upsetting news: Ms. Arian,32, had tested positive for the coronavirus. While Ms. Arian tried to process this, the staff asked her to put on a surgical mask.
Wearing the mask during childbirth made it feel like she was gasping for air while her body was splitting in half, she said. In that moment, the diagnosis of Covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, was the last thing on her mind.
“I was dealing with the idea of getting the baby out of me,” said Ms. Arian, whose son was born in May.
Each year, over 100,000 infants are born in New York City, where the pandemic has now reshaped the experience of childbirth. The virus has added more tension into what is an already uncertain process, as women are entering hospitals that have been overrun by a disease that has killed nearly 22,000 in the city and more than 120,000 nationwide.
Most women, like Ms. Arian, are immediately tested for Covid-19 when they enter maternity wards; then they may spend hours waiting for the result. In many cases, they go through labor in a mask. Some pregnant women with the virus have reported feeling shunned by staff members who they believe are fearful of contracting the illness.
Jesse Pournaras, a New York City-based doula, has tracked hospital policies in the city during the crisis and says they have been difficult to determine and “extraordinarily variable,” and have contributed to New Yorkers’ anxiety.
“People are confused and they’re upset, and they’re going into the labor and delivery units in a state of fight or flight,” Ms. Pournaras said.
During the pandemic, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has tried to shape guidelines for childbirth at hospitals, but his executive orders on the subject created confusion because facilities interpreted them differently. Critics have also said it felt like New York slid back to a time when pregnant women had less input over their care.
New York City’s Department of Health said that to protect health workers and patients, it was providing guidance to hospitals from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But the C. D. C. advises each facility to adopt policies based on rates of community transmission, as well as on space and staffing needs.
In late March, after public outcry, Mr. Cuomo reversed a new rule banning partners from labor and delivery wards. In April, under another order, he clarified that hospitals are required to allow partners and doulas to stay with most patients through labor, delivery and postpartum care.
His office convened a Covid-19 Maternity Task Force that released recommendations in April for birthing facilities, which included universal testing for patients and partners, after a study in New York City found that nearly 14 percent of pregnant women who tested positive for the virus were asymptomatic.
