by SIMONA ALESSIO
I decide to carry on a pregnancy in the covid era, which is not an easy task. A conscious mother, she puts in place all the protective measures, vaccine in the first place, with a booster dose for herself and her family. In spite of everything, 5 days before the birth I tested positive for the covid but asymptomatic. I take the test because my mother, a primary school teacher, tested positive the day before after having very mild symptoms. My only hope is to still be able to resist the other 10 days of gestation that I have left, so it was not.
On the day of my positivity, I contact my trusted gynecologist. He informs me that if I had not been negativized in good time I would have had to give birth at the Catanzaro hospital, organized with a covid department for pregnant women and not at the Crotone hospital as we had foreseen. At night, when some pain appears, my partner contacts the gynecologist who reassures him by telling him that in any case if I had arrived in labor in Crotone they would not have sent me away. Meanwhile, I try to stay calm in the hope that it may be simple contractions and not really labor. I can also rest but early in the morning I understand that the time has come. I call the gynecologist again, she doesn’t answer. She contacts me again, she reassures me and reiterates me not to worry that I can give birth in Crotone since the hospital is now equipped. It goes without saying that the moment of childbirth for a woman is a very difficult time: the pain, the fear that something could go wrong, the concern for the baby’s health put you to the test. Facing all this alone, without any close relatives, with the specter of positivity and above all in the conditions in which I found myself is really at the limit of human endurance.
Having ascertained my positivity to the triage of the Crotone hospital, I have to go to the covid emergency room, next to the emergency room. Arrived there, after about 15 minutes, a gynecolo and two midwives arrive yawed, who accompany me to a “closet” where there was a gynelocological chair and the machinery for the tracks. I am made to sit in the chair and attached to the track. The usual questions begin by the staff present. I feel and see the fear in their eyes. They ask me, a little angry, why I hadn’t gone to Catanzaro. Here I had my first moment of despair and I report that having the covid was not my responsibility and feeling it as a fault was even worse. Very worn out, I burst into tears. The pains of childbirth meanwhile increased.
The operators, faced with my discomfort, then put their professionalism and humanity into action and at that moment did their best to tell me that they were sorry above all for me who was experiencing one of the best moments of life in those conditions.
Having noted advanced labor, a transfer is unthinkable. They begin to look into each other’s eyes and activate as soon as possible. They realize that they do not even have the possibility to contact the departments, as they do not have their phones with them because they are yawed. Only my partner, the only person available outside, and my phone will be the intermediary for each contact. The birth is near, but I still have to “resist” because the gynecologist has moved to get what is strictly necessary. Neither the neonatal staff is present, intent on procuring the equipment. The midwife, always with me present, prepares a table to put my baby down immediately after delivery. All this took place in the maximum intensity of my labor. Pain, fear of any unexpected events that surely would not have been manageable in that situation. I was not equipped with clothing suitable for childbirth and above all I was almost in the open air (to allow the ventilation of the room it was all wide open) and the side table arranged for my son was right under the windows.
Finally when the necessary staff is all present I stop “resisting” and my baby is born without luckily having any problem thanks to God and to someone who has watched over me from up there. Of course I couldn’t touch it and barely caught a glimpse of it. He is immediately transported to the incubator, to the neonatal ward. The operators are disheartened by what they wanted to do but could not. Give me some oxygen, have adequate lighting, have at least the bare necessities. I emphasize, of course, that all my labor and delivery took place with the ffp2 mask that could never be lowered.
Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. After 2 long hours from the birth, with the midwife always at my side, as usual after a birth, I am informed that I will be transferred to the covid ward. I find myself in a covid semi-intensive care unit, with ten elderly patients / and in very serious conditions, all in the same room.
I experienced in a dramatic way what must have been a moment of maximum happiness. A puerpera, abandoned and treated as a covid patient, without her child by her side. My partner initiates a series of phone calls between the various departments for me to be moved, but this is the practice we are answered and within the ward with there were other accommodations available. A midwife comes to me after a few hours, at the request of the operators of that department, for routine checks. The visit, naturally very intimate, takes place in the presence of the other patients.
In the late afternoon, after strong pressure from the Medical Director and the Police forces present, my partner requests and obtains a transfer to a single room in the covid ward. The next evening the only gynecologist will come to check me, of his own free will, showing sensitivity, humanity, professionalism and closeness to my story from the beginning. It is easy to think that I have never seen my son during his entire hospital stay because the hospital is not organized. There is no possibility that I can see, hug and breastfeed my baby in a designated place. In spite of the provisions of the Ministry of Health which reiterates the importance of physical contact with the mother even if positive. The benefits far outweigh the minimal risks the newborn has of contracting the virus. (… COVID-19 positive mothers and babies must not be separated but must be enabled to stay together, practice skin-to-skin contact and rooming-in day and night, especially after childbirth and during the initiation of breastfeeding, except in the case of severe maternal or neonatal clinical conditions …).
Why is it that a patient, in this case giving birth, asymptomatic and with a third booster dose, does not have to find a specific space suitable for her conditions, safeguarding mother, child and operators in a calm and serene atmosphere? It is unthinkable that we hear so much about vision and planning for the future and not have a protocol, a consolidated intervention action against an “emergency” that would not have been such if methods, times and adequate facilities.
Childbirth is a happy life event. The Crotone hospital took us back in history. I still wonder what happened to Crotone all the money allocated by the government to strengthen and improve the health service in relation to covid. Is it possible that the organization of our health care is always so precarious? I would like to remind you that the Hospital of San Giovanni in Fiore, where I reside, had a well-equipped delivery room, closed for years, due to the notorious return plan, with still active part of the staff able to offer services. and professionalism to a vast mountain community (many kilometers away from other hospitals), gradually deprived of the Essential Levels of Assistance.
I hope that this testimony of mine reaches the appropriate offices and that each individual can make their own contribution to ensuring that these dramatic events no longer have to happen. The goal is not to scream at the scandal but to tell stories to become aware of it, and also to give credit to the many operators who have shown themselves to be professional and human. I don’t tell many other details …
The story, however, has a happy ending: now I’m at home with a beautiful creature in my arms.