Denver, Colo., Mar 29, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Sarah Sefranek, a Catholic wife and mother living in Parker, Colorado, is 37 weeks pregnant with her fourth child.
While she normally homeschools her other children even when there’s not a global pandemic on, coronavirus restrictions have changed what normal life looks like for everyone.
“It’s not regular homeschooling” right now, she said. “Regular homeschooling means you go out, you see your friends, you do exciting things.”
Sefranek and her family have been doing their best to stay home and maintain social distancing in order to avoid getting the coronavirus, especially so close to her due date. They’ve stopped going to the library, they’ve stopped playdates and book club meetings. Sefranek told CNA her husband leaves the house only to get groceries or other essentials.
But, like most pregnant women, even if Sefranek remains healthy, labor, delivery and postpartum recovery will likely look very different for her than they would have without pandemic restrictions.
“I know the things that were helpful to me when my (other babies) came, like having a meal train and having my mom come over. Now I can’t have playdates for my big kids while I’m recovering. I don’t even know where people are going to get the meat to make me meal for a meal train. So it is strange,” Sefranek said.
Things “suddenly felt a lot more serious” for Sefranek when her doctor offered to do a telemedicine visit for her 38 week appointment instead of an in-clinic appointment. Normally, at this point in pregnancy, Sefranek would be going in for weekly visits until she delivers. But her doctor told her this time, unless she had serious concerns that something was wrong, it would be best to do the visit over a video call.
Looming large among Sefranek’s worries – what happens if she, or her baby, get coronavirus?
“Recommendations are changing all the time, but right now, if I tested positive, they would want to separate the baby from me at birth, which is pretty scary to me,” she said.
There is also a shortage of coronavirus tests in most places in the U.S. Sefranek wonders what would happen if she showed up to the hospital to deliver, and had a cough or a fever, but could not get tested.
“I feel a little bit like I have to hide in even more of a bubble, because I feel I can’t catch anything at all. In a way, I feel I’m more scared of being separated from baby than I am of the virus itself,” Sefranek added, which she admits is “maybe not rational.”
A dearth of research on coronavirus and pregnancy
Information about pregnancy and coronavirus is scant, as the disease is so new and there has not been enough time for extensive research.
While pregnant women are not considered immunocompromised in the classic sense of the term, their immune systems are considered “suppressed,” meaning they are more susceptible to illnesses like the flu or coronavirus, and may suffer more severe symptoms and complications than they normally would have, were they not pregnant.
“With viruses from the same family as COVID-19, and other viral respiratory infections, such as influenza, women have had a higher risk of developing severe illness. It is always important for pregnant women to protect themselves from illnesses,” the CDC website states.
The CDC notes that it is still unknown whether mothers infected with coronavirus could pass the illness on to their babies, though it says that so far, no infants born to COVID-19 positive mothers have also tested positive for COVID-19. The virus has also thus far not been found in the amniotic fluid or breast milk of mothers who have tested positive.
There have been a small number of reported complications in pregnancy or delivery in mothers who are COVID-19 positive, though the CDC notes that it is unclear if the complications were related to the infection. Women of childbearing age are also in age categories where coronavirus death rates are not as high as older populations.
Jennifer Murphy is the medical director of the Pregnancy Support Center of Carroll County in Maryland. The pregnancy center helps women in crisis pregnancies or with low incomes with material assistance such as diapers, with medical care such as pregnancy tests or sonograms, and by connecting them with additional resources.
Murphy told CNA that so far, her center has not had any of their clients test positive for coronavirus. As a precaution, they have moved most of their operations to the parking lot, and only bring women into their facility if necessary, and once they have been screened for symptoms.
“You always worry that pregnant women are more susceptible to things than other people. So far, the data doesn’t seem to show that,” Murphy said.
“I’m not making light of it, but there’s so much in the news that’s horrifying, but most people will actually come through this just fine, and there’s not so far any evidence that pregnant women do worse than anyone else,” she added.
Murphy said she has been telling her clients to remain calm, to practice good hygiene and quarantine protocols, and to be in close contact with their doctors if they do suspect symptoms of coronavirus.
“It’s a lot of quelling of anxiety, a lot of folks who are just very afraid, and understandably,” Murphy said. “But anxiety isn’t good for you when you’re pregnant either, so we’re trying to emphasize positive things they can do quarantine-wise, and keeping their environment clean and calm as much as possible, and trying not to think too far ahead about bad things.”
“Pregnancy is a time of anxiety anyway, especially first time moms,” Murphy added. “And it’s hard not to have this add a great burden, but just to try to stay focused on a few good things and taking care of your baby. So just (focus on) keeping yourself safe, and probably not even overexposing yourself to media, because I think that just makes it worse,” she said.
“Be informed, but don’t make yourself crazy.”
Disrupting birth plans
The lack of information on pregnancy and coronavirus worries Anna H., a Catholic in Long Island, New York, where the pandemic has hit the hardest in the U.S. thus far. She is 22 weeks pregnant with her first child.
“It’s just the unknown,” Anna told CNA.
“There isn’t enough research on how it affects pregnant women, how it affects babies. I know there’s a lot of research that says that it probably isn’t too bad for the babies, but I also have asthma,” she adds, an underlying condition that could worsen the effects of coronavirus, a respiratory disease.
Anna, who teaches high school theology, said her school has been closed since March 12. She’s been teaching online, which is easier on her body, and she’s less worried about exposure now that she and her husband are working from home. She said she’s also grateful for the stay-at-home order in her state, and hopes the aggressive approach will slow the spread of the virus and relieve some of the pressure on hospitals and doctors.
Already in New York, some overwhelmed hospitals are not allowing pregnant women to bring any support people with them – no spouses, parents, children, friends or doulas.
“I’m pretty nervous about that,” Anna said. She and her husband joke that they would schedule a home birth with a midwife if it came down to him not being allowed at the birth – and Anna knows a Catholic mom in the area who has delivered all five of her children at home.
But she’s hoping it doesn’t have to come to that, and that things will calm down by the time she needs to deliver.
“Right now I feel like we don’t need to worry about that too much. We can put it in God’s hands for now,” she said.
Baylyn Wagner, who is 28 weeks along and due on June 19th with her third child, has already decided to change her labor and delivery plans in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Initially I thought, ‘Oh, it’ll for sure be over and done with by June and we won’t have to worry about delivery,’” Wagner, who lives in Minnesota, told CNA.
But then she started hearing reports of hospitals restricting support people for pregnant women to one person, or to no one. Her own hospital emailed her and told her that they would only allow one support person, even though Wagner had been planning on her husband, doula, and birth photographer attending her labor and delivery.
Wagner said her doctor tried to reassure her. Wagner had a late loss in her second pregnancy – she miscarried a little after 21 weeks – and in light of that, Wagner’s doctor said she would do her best to advocate for the hospital to make an exception for Wagner’s husband to be present for the birth of their third child.
“But she said if it gets to ‘full crisis mode,’ those were her words, they absolutely could limit it down because their priority is keeping their staff healthy. I know hospitals are doing what they can, but for us…with the anxiety we already had with this pregnancy, we chose to look into midwives to do a home birth option,” she said.
After talking with four different midwives, Wagner said it sounded to her like a lot of couples were making the same changes.
Wagner said they’ve also changed their contract with their birth photographer to a more tentative plan, that accounts for whether the photographer is sick and cannot come to the birth.
Wagner lives with her grandparents, so she said they will watch her son while she gives birth at home. Her grandfather is also a Catholic deacon, and she said she is considering asking him to baptize her child soon after the birth, in the event that churches are not yet open.
“There’s really no way to know right now what things will look like by June, if things will be better, if we’ll able to have Masses again by that point, or what the world will look like,” Wagner said.
Keeping calm, trusting God
Claire Le, who lives in Littleton, Colorado, is expecting her first child with her husband Huy. The Le’s said they stocked up on food as they saw the pandemic worsening, and since then they have been staying home as much as possible to avoid any exposure.
“My main fear is if I contract the virus, then I would have been in ICU and then my husband can’t be there during the delivery,” Claire said. “And then also, if hospital protocols get even worse, there may even be a chance he may not be there. So, right now we’re trying to control what we can, and trying to both stay healthy.”
“I think we just constantly remind ourselves that this is not in our control,” Huy added. “I mean, we can pray for a good May 1st due date where everything’s just back to normal, but things like that are not really under our control.”
Thinking about postpartum recovery is what makes Claire a little sad, she said. Her family is out in California, and they were planning to come see the baby and help out after the birth. But now, they’re not sure when a visit will be possible.
Huy and Claire are also wondering about the baptism, and if it will be performed privately.
Claire said she has found peace in prayer and offering up the situation to God.
“I know God’s been with us from the very beginning, from conception, and he’s been with us the whole way. I know we’ll be okay,” she said.
Huy said staying connected with loved ones, watching daily Mass on YouTube, and praying together as a couple has been helping them stay calm at this time.
“We went to a chapel which was relatively quiet, that gives us a little bit of a release where we can just go there and with God for a while,” he said.
Anna said she has been trying to balance her worries and anxieties by also counting her blessings.
“I always try to think about what blessings I have at this time: more time with my husband, more time prepare for the baby, more time to rest,” she said. “The fact that I’m not on my feet all the time is really helpful…teaching is physically demanding because you’re on your feet so much.”
The time at home has also afforded her more time to pray, Anna said.
“I did a novena to St. Gerard (a patron saint of pregnancy) when we first got pregnant and I just started the other day to do another novena to St. Gerard,” Anna said. “(I’m also) able to live stream daily mass, where normally when I’m a teaching I don’t have time for that.”
Wagner said she and her husband have been trying to say a daily rosary in order to stay calm at this time.
“(We’re) especially meditating on what Mary and Joseph went through and their pregnancy and their birth with Jesus, and uniting our own uncertainty to what they experienced,” she said.
She’s also been using Hallow, a Catholic prayer app that leads users through guided meditations similar to the popular Calm app, but based on Scripture readings.
“They’ve had a whole series of little guided meditations on different ways to cope with isolation and stress through all of this, so that’s been a nice tool and prayer as well,” she said.
Sefranek said the pandemic has made her identify more closely with women experiencing unplanned pregnancies, and helped her realize how much of life is out of her control.
“I planned this pregnancy nine months ago,” Sefranek said. “I didn’t plan to have a baby in the middle of pandemic…maybe every pregnancy, every birth, in a way, is unplanned.”
“I don’t want to diminish the pain and the difficulty of a real crisis pregnancy,” she added. “It just is reminding me of that…(because) so much of this outside of my control.”
Sefranek said she’s been saying a lot of “midnight rosaries” when she wakes up from pregnancy discomfort, and that’s been helping her to feel at peace, though she deeply misses the sacraments. She said she’s also been connecting with loved ones virtually to help ease her anxieties.
She is also paying attention to the small blessings in her life. For example, she said, the other day she found out that she had two extra boxes of sticks for her fertility monitor that she will need to track her cycle once the baby is born. She had previously been worried – panic buying has caused the sticks to be scarce online.
“(It was) a small thing, but maybe God had a plan for me and he used my absent mindedness to give me this small thing right now that could increase my peace,” she said.
“So that was a nice reminder that God can work through the things that feel really frustrating in the moment.”
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Cognitive dissonance!…we read:”Target has sold adult women’s-style swimwear intended to help transgender-identifying men conceal their genitals.”
Butt, also, that “…intimidating fringe voices and bullies do not represent the views of society at large.” Large in what way?
What’s even more cognitively dissonant is that actual women’s swimwear is usually immodestly designed to reveal body parts.
Why aren’t they “proud” their body parts? Or, uh, lack thereof?
Am I the only one who finds this intervention by attorneys general weird?
Oh, I am sure the atty generals are just a honorable as the folks in the Justice Dept or the FBI. Weird? The democrats are all about intimidation. My guess would be that every single one of those atty generals are democrats.This is status normal for them.Twisting our culture and turning life upside down. My advice to every sane person out there: don’t shop at Target. There should be NO violence from the right on ANY of these issues as it only gives them an excuse to further erode our constitutional rights.However, remember that Target sells NOTHING that is unique. Its stuff you can easily find elsewhere.Do it. Shop someplace else. They only understand financial losses. Its the only way we can be heard.
No, you aren’t. It is weird, and it is disgraceful.
I have long believed that our best response to much of this madness is humor – just plain flat-out laughter – these people can NOT stand to be laughed at.
“Carnell is a transgender man (a biological woman who identifies as a man). Carnell claims not to believe in a literal Satan, but treats Satanic imagery as symbolic.”
Carnell is not any kind of man. The sentence should read, “Carnell is a woman, but pretends to be a man.” And instead of repeating the name several times, it should have been replaced with “she.”
I think that Target and other retail businesses should not be displaying “PRIDE” merchandise “front and center” and making their promotion of PRIDE a part of their promotion of their store. If they wish to sell items targeted (pun!) to LGBTQ+ and other groups that they consider “marginalized,” that’s fine–but they don’t need to make a prominent display of their intent or turn it into a media ad campaign.
I doubt the Target management would agree with me.
HOWEVER…what are we, the American consumers, to do? Target, Kohl’s, WalMart, and other “big box” stores offer a fairly good quality of merchandise at very reasonable prices. For years, they have offered plus-size clothing not only to adults, but for children, too–yes, I know that being overweight is a “sin” in the eyes of many devout Christians, but…let’s get real. 50% of Americans are overweight, and in the past, have been forced to order clothing resembling gunny sacks from mail-order places that don’t care about “fashion.” Then came the “specialty shops” that sold plus-size clothing–but at rich-people prices. Target and its ilk are Godsends, as far as I and many other overweight Americans are concerned. We can look and feel good and not go broke!
But Target offers more than just plus-sized clothing. We can buy almost anything at Target for a reasonable price. Home decor (Magnolia!), electronics, tools, gardening products, toys, books, cards, gifts, baby and toddler products (clothing, furniture, etc.)–again, reasonably-priced!!
Are there stores (other than Hobby Lobby, which doesn’t sell clothing, tools, etc.!) that reject anti-Christian merchandise and philosophies, and still sell a good selection of reasonably-priced products? Are “Christian” stores located everywhere, even in smaller cities and towns, or are they only “catalogue stores” that require buying online? Are they open on Sundays, which for many people, is the only day (due to jobs, babysitting needs, etc.) they have to shop for necessities. Do they offer many jobs to people without a college degree? Are there still any “SAFE” downtowns with a number of stores that offer a variety of merchandise at shopping-center prices (and has parking that isn’t “parallel)?
Like it or not, most of us need to shop. We don’t live on farms, we can’t grow our own food and make our own clothing from cotton from our fields and wool that we have grown on our own sheep, we want to train up our children to live IN the world but not be OF the world, and we can’t isolate ourselves from everyone except our own parish. Target is affordable for many of us, located in our neighborhoods, fairly safe to visit, and allows us to redeem our time well by streamlining our shopping to just one location.
I think our best course of action is to pray for the LGBTQ+ community whenever we see a “PRIDE” display of merchandise, or a PRIDE festival (which will happen today in my city), and “aspire to live quietly, to mind our own affairs, and to work with our hands…so that we may behave properly towards outsiders…” (I Thess. 4:11-12).
If we have the opportunity to befriend someone who is LGBTQ+, as I do (musician), we should do it! One of my best friends is gay, and we have great times together. He is a man of faith and a wonderful church musician (not Catholic or Evangelical Protestant).
The LGBTQ community is small compared to the rest of Americans. Yes, they look “BIG” because they have powerful forces on their side (media, entertainment industry, journalists, several prominent billionaires, etc.), and because their festivals and shows attract huge crowds of young people and others who are trying to be “tolerant” and “inclusive” like their media and online gurus.
But they’re not “big.” Those of us with same-sex attraction (or who live in celibacy due to our unmarried/widowed/clerical state) and who do not have gender dysphoria are in the majority, and we too have powerful allies, mainly our churches, our faith-based schools, our families, and above all else, our God!
And the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is not a healthy one. The media doesn’t portray the darker side of these lifestyles, the diseases and other physical conditions and injuries; e.g., that most people who undergo transition treatment (meds) and surgeries do not live past their 40s. They don’t discuss the high rate of depression among the LGBTQ+ community (and if they do, they blame “intolerance” as the reason). They don’t reveal the loneliness of many LGBTQ+ people who live in poverty, unemployment, and isolation (again, if this is mentioned in media, the “straight” community, and often the churches and religious people, are blamed). And they don’t talk about the high rate of suicide in the LGBTQ+ community (again, claiming “non-acceptance by the straight community as the cause).
I think we should keep shopping at Target unless we have other resources to acquire what we need. I think we should befriend LGBTQ+ people who come into our sphere of influence. I think we should train up our children in the way they should go and keep very young children away from sinful influences, including most television and of course, the online world. I think our school-aged children need to be in faith-based schools. I think the Church needs to hugely increase their outreach to teenagers and that those who are gifted in working with this group should be paid a living wage by the Church to do that work. I think that the Church needs to continue to reach out to families and provide ministries that help them to grow closer to God and to each other. I think that Christians should not isolate themselves from the world, but attempt to permeate and infuse with Christian love and joy areas that are often strongholds of LGBTQ+ people, e.g., music, theater, dance, visual art, fashion, interior design, journalism, various sports (e.g., figure skating), etc. I think the Church needs to welcome LGBTQ+ people who are willing to submit to Church teaching regarding their sexual orientation.
And I think we need to do all of this in the LOVE of Christ.
The above comment (Mrs. Whitlock) bothers me. It seems to consider the Target boycott an attack on persons. Then I come to the penultimate sentence, “I think the Church needs to accept [SSA] people who are willing to submit to Church teaching regarding their sexual orientation”. Is this in dispute?