05/30/2021
My doula friend wrote this spot-on piece about how and why it's not ok that hospitals are still using Covid as an excuse to separate pregnant people from their planned support people. This is happening at scheduled prenatal ultrasound appointments, in labor triage and during both planned and unplanned cesareans.
Especially if the support team is vaccinated there's no reason these policies should still be in place.
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This weekend’s Adeline-stirs-the-pot post:
Birthing women and families have made HUGE sacrifices for the safety of healthcare workers during COVID, many of which were unnecessary, not evidence-based, and downright abusive even before the vaccine. But now we’ve had *the most effective vaccine in history* available to medical staff since January. If your staff is not 100% vaccinated at this point, it is almost without exception because those workers are choosing to not be vaccinated. If a worker cannot be vaccinated for a health reason, there is PPE available for those workers. We also are vaccinating pregnant women, all birth partners are now eligible to be vaccinated, and most are choosing to do so. Also, we are testing people for COVID before they are admitted to the hospital, often under threat of being “treated as a person under investigation” and separation from their newborn upon birth.
And yet, from ~liberal~ Seattle to COVID-denying Texas, women are still being isolated from their chosen birth companions, being made to mask in labor (even if they are vaccinated and everyone caring for them is vaccinated), told to be induced or choose c-section because it’s somehow safer, having their doulas kept from them, etc. I’m even hearing of vaccinated homebirth midwives making CHILDREN mask in their own homes during the births of their siblings.
If your hospital, birth center, or homebirth practice is still requiring masks during labor, limits on chosen birth attendants, and other COVID-era policies, try to remember how restrictive and insane those policies felt when they were first put in place. They were justified at the time because we were told we needed to keep healthcare workers safe. Now, healthcare workers are protected by a vaccine with over 98% efficacy, but policies remain largely unchanged.
These policies are now—and probably were always—about control, not safety. End them.
