Covid Babies

As the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, pregnancy and maternity services underwent a rapid transformation in an attempt to deal with transmission of the virus and the growing pressure on healthcare services. In a climate of fear, and with many unknowns about the virus and the risks to pregnant women and their babies, restrictions and hastily implemented policies often overrode years of work to improve maternity care, with devastating consequences for new families.

Covid Babies: how pandemic health measures undermined pregnancy, birth and early parenting considers how policies put in place to protect us from the immediate threat of the virus ultimately had the unintended consequence of harming many who needed maternity and postnatal care. It highlights how hard-won gains, even when supported by overwhelming evidence, can be lost at the drop of a hat in a crisis.

By learning the lessons of the pandemic – through close examination of the evidence base that is now emerging – Amy Brown shows how we can begin to move forward and unravel what has gone wrong. This is no easy task when our health services continue to face significant challenges, but one that is necessary to ensure the health and wellbeing of our new families and those who care for them.

Professor Amy Brown is Director of 'LIFT' - the centre for Lactation, Infant Feeding and Translation at Swansea University, UK. With a background in psychology, she first became interested in the many barriers women face when breastfeeding after having her first baby. Three babies and a PhD later she has spent the last fifteen years exploring psychological, cultural and societal barriers to breastfeeding, with an emphasis on understanding how we can shift our perception of breastfeeding from an individual mothering issue, to a wider public health problem.

This is her 8th book.