Recently engaged, Tracy Leong, 31, and her fiancé hope that 2020 or 2021 might be the year to start her family. A lifelong New Yorker, she felt confident that with much support from her parents, a sister and nieces who still live nearby, she could also keep her job in communication.
But when the coronavirus, lockdown measures and social distance came to New York, their plans changed. Pregnancy was terminated.
“The pandemic has completely shattered what we have proposed our family to be,” Leong said in a telephone interview with CBS News. “This is not it.”
Leong is not alone. About a third of women say they are delaying pregnancies or wanting fewer children because of the pandemic, according to a recent study published by the Guttmacher Institute. There is a shift in sentiment that a fluctuating 500,000 fewer births in the U.S. could trigger next year, a potential decline of 13%, according to a recent study by Brookings Institution.
Photo provided by Tracy Leong
The preference for timing of pregnancy differs dramatically between White women and those of color. Nearly half of Spanish women and 44% of Black women said they plan to have children later or have fewer children, while just 28% of White women express the same preference.
CBS News spoke to 17 women, including Leong, who all said the pandemic had plans to start or increase their family. Some cited economic uncertainty and job loss, while others feared the medical problems surrounding pregnancy during an outbreak of a virus where so much is unknown.
At the beginning of the arrival of the coronavirus in the US, not much was known about how the disease uniquely affected pregnant people, said Dr. Denise Jamieson, a professor in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory Medical School. In March, while New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak, hospitals briefly mandated that those going into labor should only deliver, without a partner or support person, a situation that one woman described to CBS News as “an absolute, sacred, nightmare.”
By June, the CDC issued guidance indicating that pregnant people “may have an increased risk of serious COVID-19 disease.” In the report, researchers note that “pregnancy was associated with hospitalization and increased risk of admission to intensive care unit, and receipt of mechanical ventilation, but not with death.” in addition pregnant Black and Latina people “appears disproportionately affected” by COVID-19 infection, according to the CDC.
New reports on how the virus affects those who are pregnant and her babies keep coming up. A research note published by JAMA in July noted higher specimens of primary labor and cesarean section among those infected, and found that specimens of stillbirths were “significantly higher” during the pandemic. Last week, a paper in the journal Endocrinology found that patients infected with COVID-19 during pregnancy, such as those on certain types of birth control pills, could be vulnerable to deadly blood clots.
“We learn more every day, but there are still a lot of questions that remain,” Jamieson said in a telephone interview.
Economic uncertainty and coronavirus-related job losses, which have disproportionately affected women, have also caused many to think about pregnancy time. Between February and April, 12.1 million women lost their jobs, accounting for 55% of job losses since the start of the pandemic, according to calculations by the National Center for Women’s Law with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
When the economy began to shrink and communities reopened, women hired two-thirds of the jobs in July, according to NWLC. Only 44.2% of those jobs were in leisure / hospitality and retail – work that often requires personal contact with guests and clients, leaving employees at higher risk of exposure to the deadly virus. It is also vulnerable to re-closure, as coronavirus cases have increased, signaling “that women may soon run the risk of losing their jobs again,” the NWLC wrote in a press release published Friday.
Job loss have been particularly high among women of color. As of July, unemployment among black women was 13.5% and for Spanish women it was 14%, according to NWLC data. That compares with 11.2% for White women, and 9.8% for men of all races.
In the US, unemployment poses another problem: health insurance coverage. A recent Guttmacher study found that assuming an unemployment rate of 20%, more than 6 million women of reproductive age could do not find themselves insured – a 22% increase, and a situation that would pose a certain severity in the 14 states that have not extended Medicaid’s eligibility.
“If you’re pregnant, unemployed and not insured? Oh, my God, that’s a terrible prospect,” said Adam Sonfield, the report’s author, in a telephone interview with CBS News.
Sarah and her husband have been trying to conceive in the months following the pandemic. But when the country went into lockdown, Sarah lost her job as a security guard, and as a result, her health insurance. She has not found a steady job since.
“The next day I called my doctor to find the cheapest birth option,” Sarah, who asked her not to use her real name, said in a telephone interview in July. “We can barely provide medical bills, even with insurance. A pregnancy? No way.”
A recent study published in Health Affairs found that the average delivery of hospitals in the US costs an average of $ 4500, and that is with insurance. Without coverage, an uncomplicated birth control in about $ 30,000. If complications occur, the costs skyrocket “easily in six digits and in some cases seven.”
“It could easily bankrupt you,” Sonfield said.
Delivery is only part of the cost. For many, a pregnancy will be the most contact they have with the health care system in their lifetime, Sonfield said. Between tests, ultrasounds, vaccinations, and counseling, patients can expect at least 15 appointments for prenatal physicians before their delivery, more than the pregnancy is considered high risk, according to guidance from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
For Leong and her fiancé, a future pregnancy is waiting indefinitely until the virus is under control and things, she says, have “calmed down.” If that happens then it is time to dump her and move on.
“I’m 31 and I know there’s theoretical time, but what if by the time we decide to do it we can not?”
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