‘It felt sci-fi’: Couple share ordeal of giving birth under coronavirus restrictions

‘There was a chain delivery of nurses. We never even saw their faces – they were bound up with masks,’ parents tell Maya Oppenheim

Ms Bowskill, who gave birth at Lister Hospital in Hertfordshire in the middle of March, said being treated by health professionals wearing face masks was something of a surreal experience

It was very distressing,” Holly Bowskill tells The Independent as she recalls the birth of her child under restrictions brought in to limit the spread of coronavirus in hospitals.

The 39-year-old says her husband Drummond was required to remain in the corner of the room while their son was born – then escorted out of the hospital without being allowed to hold him due to developing Covid-19 symptoms after she went into Labour. She was left without support in the hospital with her newborn baby, while staff treating her wore protective equipment including face masks to lower the risk of infection spreading.

“It felt a bit sci-fi,” the mother-of-two, who gave birth at Lister Hospital in Hertfordshire, says. “With the masks, it puts a barrier between you and all these people at a time when you are feeling really vulnerable. They are asking you to make decisions about your care, and you can’t see their facial expressions, which makes everything feel a bit uncertain at a time when you are feeling uncertain anyway. I was very conscious afterwards that loads of people had seen me completely naked and I would not know afterwards if I saw them on the street.”

Drummond, also 39, says he found it tremendously difficult having to watch his wife give birth while remaining 2m away from her at all times.

“Initially we were in a midwife-led unit,” the actor says. “It was all plinky plonky music, baths, mood lighting and we thought this was going to be the greatest thing in the world. But they wanted to move us due to a technical issue the midwife had not been aware of. Nothing linked to coronavirus. Then I started feeling off-colour. It was all taken out of our hands. I started feeling worse and worse. It was an absolute nightmare.”

Drummond says that after he developed a cough and high temperature – two key symptoms of the coronavirus – he was told to leave hospital immediately and self-isolate for seven days with no contact with his wife and baby. However, it was later decided he could stay as he kept his distance.

He adds: “I was really distressed by it. We were there for 24 hours. The last 10 to 12 hours I wasn’t able to get close to her. I was advised not to. Even though we had already been sharing drinks and had been close in the first 12 hours of labour. I did think: ‘What does it matter at this point? If I have got it, she is going to have it.’

“There was a chain delivery of nurses. We never even saw their faces – they were bound up with masks. Just faceless people coming in to do stuff to you. It became quite clinical. It felt like the film ET. They kept bringing in machines to administer drugs. There was a bath full of machines bleeping and not working. We weren’t allowed to leave the room.

“After he was born, the registrar said, ‘You were lucky to stay. This should not have happened. I think maybe you should leave now.’ I got ejected out into an alleyway. It was the middle of the night. I couldn’t find my way out. I was lost for half an hour. I was completely shell-shocked. I had seen my new baby for the first time which should be a beautiful, wonderful thing.”

Drummond says the experience was compounded by his own anxiety about potentially infecting his 75-year-old mother, who had been looking after their three-year-old daughter while they were at the hospital. His mother suffers from emphysema so is at higher risk of more serious complications from the coronavirus.

Holly, his wife of almost five years, says her birthing experience was massively different to how she had imagined it would be but the staff did their best to make her feel comfortable regardless.

“They were wonderful,” she adds. “They kept apologising for the fact they had to put all this equipment on. They were not sure what they were meant to be doing. They were very much finding their way as it happened. Postnatal care since we have been home with the baby has been a real challenge which has added to the general anxiety. Midwives have come to visit. Normally they would come several times but they signed us off without doing a final appointment to check he is gaining weight. We are left worrying if he is feeding properly and getting enough milk.”

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has issued guidelines since Holly gave birth explaining that birth partners who have symptoms of coronavirus will not be permitted to go into maternity suites, in order to protect the health of the woman and the maternity staff there.

The NHS states women who are pregnant could be at higher risk from Covid-19 and should only be leaving home for very limited reasons.

But the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives has warned there is no evidence to suggest pregnant women are at greater risk from the coronavirus. “[This] is a precautionary measure to reduce the theoretical risk to the baby’s growth and risk of pre-term if the mother becomes unwell,” the bodies said in a statement.

NHS England and the NHS trust which runs the hospital have been contacted for comment.