A single 6-week visit after having a baby? The U.S. is doing postpartum care all wrong.
With the omicron variant forcing hospitals to make difficult decisions once again about what care to provide, Covid-19 must not again defer postpartum care. Postpartum follow-up care is essential health care, and we should be expanding rather than constricting access. The experiences of women who gave birth during the early days of the pandemic make that clear.
I gave birth to my youngest daughter in March 2020, just as our state shut down. Things rapidly changed as I attended my final prenatal care appointments and entered the hospital to deliver her. New restrictions meant I had to attend prenatal appointments without my partner, and I was limited to a single support person once it came time to give birth.
We were discharged early, just 24 hours after Lily was born, to limit our risk of exposure to Covid at the hospital. Despite the extraordinary adaptation that this unprecedented crisis demanded of our health care system, I consistently felt that my health care providers and the health care system as a whole were committed to caring for my baby and me.
That changed when I left the hospital. I had never felt more alone. Even in normal times, weekly visits in late pregnancy give way to a profound lack of attention to women in the U.S. after childbirth. A single routine postpartum visit at six weeks leaves women otherwise largely on their own to cope with physical and emotional challenges that vary in severity, from postpartum pain to depression to breastfeeding challenges.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-surges-health-officials-must-remember-person-postpartum-care-essential-ncna1287880
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US postpartum care is not a whole lot better in NON-PANDEMIC times (speaking as one who gave birth 4 times)!
