The COVID-19 pandemic has been uniquely trying for many families that welcomed a baby in 2020 and 2021. jasmlaughlin and SarahGantz asked six Philly-area parents how they've endured.
For parents whose children have never lived outside a pandemic, it’s been a time with limited choices, few of them ideal. Parents who choose to isolate their families to protect newborns and toddlers —— often do so at the expense of their own mental health. And those who had no choice but to go to work at the height of the pandemic did so with guilt and anxiety over their children.
She doesn’t think she had postpartum depression because she could usually rally and Robinson’s return from work brightened her mood, she said.There is no single cause of postpartum depression, but contributing factors include a dramatic drop in hormones after giving birth, the stress of a dramatic life change and caring for a newborn, sleep deprivation, financial problems, and a weak support system. The pandemic exacerbated many of these issues, experts said.
“People don’t want to talk about the downsides of having a child, you’re not really encouraged to talk about it,” he said. “I figured this is something that’s happening — but we can deal with it. It doesn’t have to be permanent.”For many families, caring for a newborn and the pandemic were accompanied by other complications.
“Every night I would just be staring at the wall once they went to sleep, just crying, and I didn’t know what I was crying for,” she said. “I just started feeling sad, feeling alone.” Aimée Jean-Louis Rooney, of West Philadelphia, attended a Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 4, 2020, the day before she gave birth to her daughter, Grace. Fearful of getting sick, she and her husband, Horace, both educators, chose a less-congested suburban event and stayed at the crowd’s periphery, but being present felt important. George Floyd’s killing renewed her fears for her older children, and she wondered what world she was bringing her daughter into.
The Rooneys are hoping for a summer without COVID fears and cancer treatments. The experience they want most for Grace is her first flight, possibly to visit family in Miami.
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