Maternity and perinatal care in the Covid-19 pandemic: experiences and perceptions in the post-pandemic narratives of women in transition to motherhood in Italy

Abstract

This paper explores how the Covid-19 restrictive policies and organizational changes in maternal and perinatal (health) care services affected the perceptions and subjective experiences of women in transition to motherhood in Italy. It does so on the basis of 20 interviews with first-time mothers who gave birth in 2020-2021 in Northern Italy. Contrary to WHO recommendations promoting physiological childbirth and a humanized birth model, pandemic measures increased the medicalization of perinatal care and hindered fathers' involvement in childbirth and early childcare (Zanini and Quagliariello 2023). Most studies have been carried out during the emergency phase, rarely from a sociological perspective, and without distinguishing between first-time mothers and women with previous childbirth experience. Our paper analyses, through a sociological lens, women's narratives collected in the current post-pandemic phase, making it possible to retrospectively explore pregnancy, childbirth, and post-partum experiences during the pandemic, and the consequences that this latter had for the experience of transitioning to motherhood. The findings seem to confirm that the pandemic further rationalized and technicalized maternity care services, prioritizing safety and risk management over the need for care (Davis-Floyd and Gutschow 2021) and revealing significant gaps in support for mothers and their families during the period of crisis due to Covid-19.

Keywords: transition to motherhood, maternity and perinatal care, Covid-19 pandemic, Italy.