‘Different experience, but a nice one’
Giving birth during pandemic not the same for third-time mom
Bringing a new life into the world during a global pandemic seemed a bit nerve-racking, at first.
Tina Poos said she heard too many stories for comfort in the weeks prior to giving birth to her third child — such as newborns being isolated from even their mothers, and that no visitors would be permitted.
“I tried to look at it as let’s just take each day the best we can. There’s no point in worrying about what could happen or what will happen.”
Her husband Christopher works in a long-term-care home — and although no cases of COVID-19 had been reported at his west Niagara facility, she said it still added to their concerns.
“I was trying not to stress too much and trying not to worry, because that wouldn’t be good for me or the baby.”
Poos said her doctor and hospital staff were reassuring. “They would let me know what was going on as things were being updated.”
Poos, who lives in Jordan Station, was scheduled to give birth at a different hospital than she was used to.
Her two sons, William, 5, and Luke, 3, were born at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital, but that facility is now being renovated.
“Already I knew I couldn’t have this one at West Lincoln, so I was a little nervous about having it at a different hospital because I was used to Grimsby.”
Laura Farrelly, director of the obstetrics department at St. Catharines hospital, said she has heard concerns from expectant parents in the past few months.
“It’s been a very unusual time everywhere. I’ve been around a long time but never in anything like this,” she said.
Although Niagara is not considered a high-risk population for the spread of the coronavirus, Farrelly said the hospital still must follow guidelines pertaining to the screening of patients and visitors and proper use of personal protective equipment.
“We’re looking at potential screening of some of our babies of our suspect moms. There’s a lot of that. We’ve had to do a lot of pre-screening of patients.”
She said the hospital’s response to the pandemic changes quickly.
“What we do one day has changed numerous times. It was quite a process to figure out if a mom came in who was a suspect case, which room we’d put her in, how we’d flow her through the department, how we’d manage the baby, and could moms and babies room together?” she said.
“We had to work through a lot of those things to make sure that families and patients know
what to expect when they get here and, yes, they can still be with their baby … There’s no evidence to suggest that we need to separate them (mothers and their babies).”
And so far, she said, none of the mothers or the newborns have tested positive for the virus.
Farrelly said mothers are limited to a single support person to stay with them — something Poos described as a “24-hour date.”
“It’s not your ideal date, but you get to spend that time with your husband and just your baby, which is really nice.”
In hindsight, Poos described her experience as “really quite lovely.”
At 6:28 p.m. on April 28, Poos and her husband became parents of a healthy eight-pound, five-ounce daughter named Charlotte Corrie.
“We didn’t know what we were having, so that was a nice surprise.
“Overall, we had a great experience. The nurses were very friendly, very kind,” she said.
Still, Poos said she and Christopher had to make a few compromises.
“We couldn’t have any visitors, which wasn’t the greatest because we obviously wanted our kids to come and meet her on the first day as a family,” she said. “It was a different experience, but a nice one.”
Partly because of renovations at West Lincoln Memorial, the maternity ward at St. Catharines hospital has been an extremely busy place, with 277 births reported in April and 280 in May.