Lockdown babies: Birth and new parenting experiences during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa, a cross-sectional study.
Elise Farley, Amanda Edwards, Emma Numanoglu and 1 others
PMID 34518119WHAT IT FOUND
South African parents who gave birth during lockdown reported missing support people, less lactation help, earlier discharge, and more negative birth feelings; most mothers still felt positive about birth, while 63.3% of mothers screened positive for probable minor depression.
Key findings
01Most mothers who gave birth during lockdown said the pandemic affected their birth experience (325 of 418, 78%), compared with 16 of 78 before lockdown (21%).
02Probable minor depression was indicated in 314 mothers (63.3%), and predominantly negative birth emotions were associated with higher odds of probable minor depression (aOR 3.60; CI 1.93–6.70).
03During lockdown, a smaller proportion of mothers saw a hospital lactation consultant (53, 13%) than before lockdown (30, 39%), and a larger proportion were discharged early (132, 32.6% versus 5, 6.4%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study used convenience and snowball sampling, so it cannot be generalised to most South African parents. The sample was mainly degree-educated, married, middle-to-high-income private hospital users. The male group was too small for comparative analysis. The Edinburgh scale screened for probable depression but was not a diagnostic tool. The cross-sectional survey cannot show that lockdown caused the reported experiences or depression. Recall bias was possible, and different lockdown levels and postpartum periods were hard to separate.
Declared interests
The authors reported no specific funding, stated that all authors worked voluntarily, and declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 63.3% probable minor depression figure as diagnosed depression or as proof that lockdown caused depression. It came from a screening cut-off in a convenience sample of mostly private-hospital mothers.