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‘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

Saturday 04 April 2020 17:48 BST
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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
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.”

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