Category: coronavirus

Which ‘Friends’ Character Each Country Would Be, Based On Their Response To The Coronavirus Pandemic
Just for fun · pop culture · Uncategorized

Which ‘Friends’ Character Each Country Would Be, Based On Their Response To The Coronavirus Pandemic

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

Can you tell I’ve been watching too much Netflix?

1. China – Ross Geller

Did China have a moral responsibility to warn the international community sooner about the threat of the emerging coronavirus? Well, some people think so. But China disagrees. Perhaps because they were ON A BREAK.

Like that time where Ross decided not to tell Rachel they were still married, China kept Covid 19 on the down low, presumably hoping that the problem would somehow just go away of its own accord. And, just like Ross and his history of unwise marital choices, China too has previous for this kind of behaviour (cough cough SARS cover-up, 2002).

2. South Korea – Monica Geller


China’s little sister used to be much bigger, but lost a bunch of weight landmass to the Communists at the end of the Second World War.

South Korea has kept its coronavirus death toll low through a rigorous programme of testing, treating and tracing contacts, plus social distancing measures. This is exactly the kind of country that’s obsessed with hygiene and has 11 categories of towels.

3. United Kingdom – Chandler Bing


No-one knows what Chandler’s job actually is, and similarly no-one really knows what the UK government was doing with all the time it had to prepare for the impact of coronavirus. Even the Prime Minister treated Covid 19 as an opportunity to crack tasteless jokes… How very Chandler Bing. Many experts now believe the UK will be one of the worst-affected European nations. Could we BE any worse at responding to a global pandemic?

If only the pandemic had taken place during a later season of Friends, the UK might have benefited more from the shining example of Monica/South Korea. Unfortunately, we’re still in the early seasons, with the UK in a co-dependent relationship with Joey…

4. United States – Joey Tribbiani


The USA’s response to coronavirus can best be described as… confused. Like the time that Joey got fired from Days Of Our Lives for claiming that he wrote all his own lines, Donald Trump has been called out for spreading fake news about coronavirus, such as saying that it’s a hoax and that one day the virus will just disappear “like a miracle”.

Germany reacted furiously when 200,000 American-made protective masks destined for Berlin mysteriously disappeared en route, and there are suspicions that the US government redirected them for its own purposes. I guess the United States DOESN’T SHARE FOOD PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT.

Could the US have done a better job addressing the pandemic? Well, at this juncture, it’s a moo point.

5. Italy – Rachel Green

Just like when a night of unexpected passion between Ross and Rachel resulted in a surprise (Emma), Italy’s unexpectedly close relationship with China may have resulted in a surprise spike in Covid 19 cases in the northern regions of Italy, which have a high number of Chinese workers. Where are those workers employed? Why, just like Rachel, they work in the fashion and textile industry. And it’s increasingly clear that China/Ross and Italy/Rachel have a pretty messed up relationship…

6. New Zealand – Phoebe

Phoebe cares a lot. That’s why she’s a vegetarian and shops at flea markets. And that’s why she’s New Zealand, which has pursued a highly-praised policy of eliminating Covid 19 transmission completely within its borders. Plus, Prime Minister Jacinda Adern gave a very Phoebe-esque speech assuring children that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy are considered key workers and thus would not be affected by the lockdown. And she finished up by singing a song about a foul-smelling cat… Or so I’ve heard.

7. The World Health Organisation – Mr Heckles

No-one wants to engage with Mr Heckles, the crazy downstairs neighbour who keeps banging on the floor with a broom and shouting “Test for cases! Trace and isolate contacts! Use adequate personal protective equipment!”

Ugh, the WHO. Such a pain.

8. The Novel Coronavirus – Janice

Much like coronavirus, I’m pretty sure that Janice doesn’t have a surname.* They both seem to have the ability to pop up literally anywhere, no matter how much they’re not wanted. And once you’ve been involved with Covid 19, it seems like it’s pretty difficult to break up.

*Yes, yes, apparently it’s Hosenstein, who knew?

Dalgona Coffee – Fun Korean Coffee Drink You Can Make During Lockdown!
Just for fun · lifestyle

Dalgona Coffee – Fun Korean Coffee Drink You Can Make During Lockdown!

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

So my awesome husband came across this great recipe for an awesome chilled coffee drink you can make at home. It’s called Dalgona coffee, it’s Korean, you can make it with ingredients you already have, and it feels like something super fancy you need to go to a coffee shop for!

He got the recipe from this website and I’ll direct you there as well for the full details. Essentially you make a meringue-style coffee foam by whisking equal quantities of good-quality instant coffee and sugar with a little bit of water, until it forms stiff peaks just like a meringue. Then you dollop it into cold milk. You can either mix it in with the milk or leave the foam on top and drink the milk through the coffee foam – I recommend the latter option because not only does it taste great, but the velvety texture is very satisfying.

It’s very quick and easy, and you can make a large amount of coffee foam and refrigerate it for a couple of days to use later. We made dalgona coffee over lunch one day and it was a great afternoon treat and something a bit different to do during quarantine.

A picture of our dalgona coffees is below…

Little Man’s First Easter – Lockdown Special
celebrations · Just for fun · lifestyle

Little Man’s First Easter – Lockdown Special

The Sickly Mama1 Comment
Advertisements

We had big plans for Little Man’s first Easter. We were going to go stay with my parents. My father-in-law was going to come along too, as were my sister and auntie. On the Saturday lots of other aunties and uncles were going to visit to get their first chance to meet the little dude. And as my parents live in the countryside, we were going to chill in the garden, go for lovely walks, visit the local pubs… Etc etc. Then coronavirus hit and instead we’ve had to spend Easter at home, just the three of us.

So it wasn’t quite what we planned, but we still had a fabulous time. Some of my highlights were…

Little Man’s First Easter Egg Hunt


Martin and I took it in turns to hide eggs in the garden and then search for them. Little Man was absolutely useless at finding eggs. He spent most of the time just squinting in the bright light and dribbling. He’s seriously going to have to up his game for next year.

Eating, Drinking and Baking


We’ve had some really great food and drink this weekend! Particular highlights: Martin made me a fabulous gin and lemonade with mint leaves on Saturday, and made incredible lamb neck fillet kebabs on Sunday. He put a dry rub on the meat and let it marinade overnight and it was dreamy!

I baked a delicious gluten free Easter chocolate cake from this Nigella Lawson recipe, which I highly recommend! I also think it will be fabulous in the summer with raspberries instead of mini eggs.


Family Video Calls


We had some lovely video calls with family over the weekend and it felt like we had fun together despite the lockdown. We chatted to family in Japan on Saturday morning while they had their dinner, and it was their first chance to meet Little Man albeit remotely! It’s crazy how our nieces in Japan grow so fast, every time we see them, they seem to have grown so much. Another highlight was family Easter quizzes with my family over WhatsApp/Kahoot, masterminded by my awesome sister. It was fun to do something different and interactive together.

Playing Dress-Up


Obviously Easter means bunnies, which means a great excuse to dress Little Man up in an adorable costume! He was our Easter Bunny for the day on Sunday and it was ridiculously cute.

My Pituitary Gland Has A Great Sense Of Timing
health · pituitary · Uncategorized

My Pituitary Gland Has A Great Sense Of Timing

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

So, I have a super rare tumor on my pituitary gland. It’s called a TSHoma or thyrotropinoma, because it produces thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). I’ve had surgery on it twice but we’ve never quite been able to get rid of it, there’s still a teeny stumpy bit left.

There’s actually technically no approved medical treatment for my condition, because it’s so rare, but for many years I was treated off-label with a medication called Somatuline, which is used for another kind of pituitary tumor and worked well for mine. However, when my husband and I decided we wanted to try for a baby, my endocrinologists suggested trying another medication, also off-label, usually used for yet another kind of pituitary tumor. It’s called cabergoline and they suggested trying it because it’s been used slightly more often in pregnancy compared to the other medication I was on. My doctors thought there was maybe a one in five or one in six chance that it would work to treat my tumor, so I was pretty pleased when it did.

Cabergoline stops you lactating, because it inhibits the production of prolactin by the pituitary. As I wanted to have a chance at breastfeeding, we agreed that I would stop taking the medication six weeks before my due date with Little Man, to give it a good chance to leave my system and allow me to produce breast milk before he arrived.

As it turned out, Little Man had his own plans. My waters went at 36 weeks and 5 days, and he arrived at 37 weeks exactly (just 2 and a half hours away from being technically premature!). Breastfeeding didn’t work out for us, but when I saw my endocrinologist a few weeks after the birth, I wasn’t having any symptoms from being off the medication, so we agreed I would stay off it for now. I was due to return in three months, and get in touch if my symptoms came back.

Well, now that coronavirus is here and I really don’t want to go to the hospital or GPs, my symptoms are back and I want to go back on my medication. It’s not terrible so far, just occasionally a fast heart rate, feeling a bit jittery, and the odd shooting pain in my neck (always the most unambiguous sign that my thyroid is doing something weird).

The hospital has introduced a great new telephone system where you can’t just phone a department directly, you have to go through a central switchboard. This is great because it means that you can wait on hold for ages to explain why you’re calling to the switchboard operator, who then explains that they can’t help you and will need to put you through to the department. Then you’re on hold again, which is brilliant because the hold music is not at all deeply irritating. Then either a) no one answers and the call just terminates, or b) someone answers and you get to explain why you’re calling again, so they can tell you that they’re not the right person to talk to and they’ll put you through to the relevant person. Then the relevant person isn’t in, so you’re told they’ll call you back. Then, when they don’t call you back, you get to start the whole process again.

It really is a genius of modern system design, because previously when I had to call the hospital, I sometimes only reached medium levels of furious hatred at their appalling administration, whereas now I reach maximum capacity every time.

So, last week I sent an email to my endocrinologist’s secretary, in a bid to avoid having to telephone hundreds of times until my soul is macerated completely and starts to run out of my nose. However, I have not heard back and my symptoms are only getting more noticeable, so I guess telephoning is now my only option. I can’t wait!

The pituitary gland is also known as the hypophysis. And that’s not just a hypothesis.

Lockdown Fun: The Quarantini Challenge
Just for fun · Uncategorized

Lockdown Fun: The Quarantini Challenge

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

So lockdown is boring (have I mentioned that?), and we have to find ways to make it more fun. My awesome husband came up with the idea of inventing a cocktail with just ingredients we already have in the house (although, fair warning, we do have two shelves of booze in the pantry, so it’s not a particularly heavy restriction). Clearly this would be named… The Quarantini. And this is the Quarantini Challenge!

I suggested we should each separately come up with a recipe and swap. Originally we were both going to make our drinks on Sunday evening, but after Martin made his drinks, it rapidly became clear that having another cocktail each would result in a much higher level of inebriation than intended or appropriate for a Sunday night. So I made mine on Monday instead.

Read on for the recipes…

Martin’s Quarantini: The Dirty Artini

Named after Dirty Arty, a video game character notorious for eating tinned peaches and leaving the cans behind (among other things). Martin went with the base of a classic Martini, and a quarantine twist straight from our cupboard of canned goods. His recipe:

  • 50ml gin (he used Roku gin, a Japanese brand)
  • 10ml Marsala wine
  • 10ml peach liqueur (or umeshu)
  • 15ml tinned peach juice

The above to be stirred over ice, strained into a cocktail glass and garnished with a slice of tinned peach (lockdown bonus: you get to eat the rest of the tin afterwards).

My Quarantini: The Jumbletini

Named because it was made of a total mish-mash of random booze from the store cupboard, I proudly present my recipe for a quarantini:

  • 25ml spiced dark rum (I used Kraken rum, our favourite)
  • 25ml lemon gin (Sipsmith Lemon Drizzle)
  • 10ml pink grapefruit gin (from the Ely Gin Company)
  • 10ml umeshu (Japanese plum wine which I’m obsessed with, I used The Choya Single Year)
  • lemonade to taste
  • mint leaves from the garden

I smushed up the mint leaves (technical term) and served the above over ice in our favourite sparkley whiskey glasses.

The Quarantini Challenge: Who Won?

Obviously it pains me to admit it, but Martin’s quarantini was better! My cocktail was pretty nice actually, and I would drink it again, but Martin’s was delicious, plus you got to eat the boozey peach slice at the end, which was awesome. So yes: Martin won the Quarantini Challenge!

Have you made a quarantini? What was your recipe? I’d love to try other people’s store cupboard cocktails too!

More lockdown fun…

I’ve also written about my kitchen tips and tricks for lockdown, focusing around cooking and storage tips and ideas for stocking up during the Covid-19 pandemic. Why not check it out?

Lockdown Larder: Kitchen Tips and Tricks for Food Shortages and Limited Shopping Trips
Uncategorized

Lockdown Larder: Kitchen Tips and Tricks for Food Shortages and Limited Shopping Trips

The Sickly Mama1 Comment
Advertisements

Hi guys! I thought today I would share some of my best lockdown larder tips for cooking and stocking your kitchen during the current coronavirus lockdown. My husband is the chef in our household, while I do the baking. As I’m on maternity leave though, I’ve done most of the organising of food shops and storage.

I’m currently sat in our living room with my three month old son, who is busy doing a poo. This is a rather involved process requiring a lot of concentration, so I guess we could be here a while. I might as well do something useful with the time…

Lockdown Larder: Kitchen Tips and Tricks

1. You Can Freeze Milk

I was surprised how many people don’t know this! But you can totally freeze fresh milk. My mum has been doing this for years to ensure the house never runs out. I currently have four spare bottles of milk in the freezer for the times when we can’t get hold of it at the supermarket. Obviously if you’re going to do this, be considerate – don’t buy up loads of milk at once, as that’s what leads to shortages. Buy a little extra and set it aside over several shopping trips. Also, fair warning: frozen milk does turn yellow, which looks slightly horrifying, but it goes white again when you defrost it.

Bonus tip: you can also freeze butter.

2. You can make bread without yeast.

I know a lot of places are experiencing shortages of baker’s yeast, but you can make delicious flatbread without yeast, such as Indian naan bread (click for the recipe) or, if you prefer something that’s a more traditional loaf, you can make Irish soda bread.

However, in actual fact you can make a lot more kinds of bread because…

3. You don’t need yeast to make yeast

You can make your own yeast with just flour and water, by capturing natural yeast from the air to make a sourdough starter. Once your sourdough starter is going, you can bake all kinds of yeasted breads and cakes from it. Plus, if you’re homeschooling kids, it makes for a great home science project!

Speaking of which…

4. You don’t need eggs (or flour) to make cake

Obviously a lot of cake recipes require egg, and there seem to be a lot of shortages of eggs at the moment. Local farm shops/veg box delivery companies are a good alternative source to the supermarket, if you live somewhere a bit more rural.

However, if you can’t get eggs there’s still plenty of easy bakes you can do without them (and if you have kids, they’ll enjoy making them too). Try making scones,* or flapjacks are a great bake if you can’t get hold of eggs or flour. You can even make meringue without egg whites. There are also lots of vegan recipes online that are egg free, so get a’googling!

5. Green lentils bulk out meat dishes

If you are trying to ration what’s in your freezer, but want to make dishes such as cottage pie or spaghetti bolognese (really anything involving minced meat), you can make your mince go further by bulking out with green lentils. Cook your ragu or sauce, add the lentils about fifteen minutes before the end, and your meal will go much further, still taste deliciously meaty, and actually be healthier as well. Triple win! Plus, kids will not notice that you’re secretly feeding them veg. Quadruple win?

6. Freeze freeze freeze

Obviously you want to be making best use of your freezer right now, and minimising the number of trips to the supermarket wherever possible. There’s a lot of stuff that you can’t just freeze – lots of fresh vegetables need blanching before freezing, which is a total pain. On the other hand, I hear that scurvy is worse.

If you’re lazy like me, you can straight-up freeze onions and peppers (chop them first) without blanching, which is handy for making fajitas and stir fries etc. Then put other veg in sauces, soups, ragu etc. which can be frozen once cooked and make for an easy ready meal for your future self.

…And that’s me pretty much done on the top tips front, so let’s finish up with a few wise words from Ryan Gosling.

Lockdown Larder: Your Top Tips

Do you have any lockdown larder tips for food storage or preservation? I’d love to hear your ideas! Let me know in the comments.

* The recipe I’ve linked to suggests using egg to glaze, but you can substitute milk, or just not bother glazing!

“Mummy, What Did You Do During the Pandemic?”
Uncategorised

“Mummy, What Did You Do During the Pandemic?”

The Sickly Mama1 Comment
Advertisements

“Mummy, what did you do during the pandemic?”

“Well, darling, mostly I sat around the house wiping your vomit off things.”

It’s been three weeks now and I’ve left the house once for a walk and once to take Little Man to the doctor’s for his second set of vaccinations. It’s not really how I envisaged my maternity leave going. After two months, I’d just got to the point where taking Little Man out no longer felt like a huge undertaking, and I could predict how much time I would need to get us ready before leaving the house. I was just starting to think of doing some more adventurous trips out with him on my own, when coronavirus really hit and we had to stay in the house.

It’s hard not to be a bit gutted when I think of all the plans we had for maternity leave which probably won’t happen now. We were planning to take him for a couple of weeks in Ireland, drive down to Devon, we had family planning to visit from Japan in the summer, I was hoping to arrange some kind of ‘welcome to the world’ party for him… The list of cancellations goes on.

Equally, we have to get through this by staying positive and there are some positives. His dad is working from home which means he gets to spend so much more time with us, and that’s lovely for everyone (although he may not agree when he’s on a conference call and Little Man is kicking off downstairs). Plus, financially things aren’t so tight as expected with my maternity pay reduction, because we’re not going out and spending money.

Sometimes it feels a bit useless to be sat indoors, so I have to keep reminding myself that we’re at least doing our bit to try to avoid spreading this horrible virus around. We’re so grateful to all the keyworkers who make it possible for us to stay at home, from the delivery men who bring our shopping, to the medical staff on the front line who probably would like nothing more than to be sat at home with their kids every day, wiping vomit off things.

#stayindoors

Vaccinations In A Time Of Coronavirus
Uncategorized

Vaccinations In A Time Of Coronavirus

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

Little Man was due his second set of vaccinations this week, so on Tuesday all three of us headed out to our GP’s office. We were a little worried about taking him to the surgery and the risk of coronavirus transmission, as we’ve all been very careful to stay at home as much as possible during the outbreak, but the illnesses he was being vaccinated against (including diphtheria*, tetanus, whooping cough and meningitis B) are just as nasty, or even nastier, than coronavirus. Diphtheria, for instance, has a death rate of up to 20% in the under-fives, and 5 – 10% overall even with treatment. It might be rare in the UK but there were still ten cases last year, and one death.

Vaccinations in a time of coronavirus

When I set up this blog on WordPress, I followed a number of other mummy bloggers more or less at random, to see what people were writing about and how families are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. I have subsequently already un-followed one blog that was pushing an anti-vaccination agenda. This included nonsense like claiming that it’s better for your child to catch measles so they develop immunity to it naturally, rather than through a vaccine. Of course, this rather misses the point that if your child dies from measles, they won’t get the chance to develop immunity either way.

Last year in Samoa, a measles outbreak killed 76 people, mostly children. Of the 1,249 measles cases in the US in the same year, 10% needed to be hospitalised. The average age of those hospitalised was just six years old. Even if your child survives measles, do you really want to run the risk of putting them through that when there is an effective vaccine?

I’ve never really understood the mindset of people who are anti-vaccine, but being a new mum and actively making the decision to vaccinate my child has got me thinking about it. Why do parents choose not to vaccinate? Maybe by trying to understand why parents refuse vaccinations, we can better address the issue and encourage a higher uptake of immunisations.

Why Do Parents Choose Not To Vaccinate?

It’s tough to watch your child have vaccinations

Firstly, I hadn’t appreciated how tough taking your baby to be vaccinated is. I thought I’d be fine with it – after all, Little Man was in intensive care for a while after he was born, and a couple of little injections should seem like nothing after watching him have a naso-gastric tube put in, various injections and blood tests etc. etc. But it was still tough! I had a little cry after I took him for his first immunisations. I think there’s a weird sense of guilt from the fact that I know what’s coming and he doesn’t – he’s being his usual happy self, in a room of new people and new things to look at, having some nice cuddles, and then bam! Someone sticks a needle in his leg, and he’s understandably upset. It’s not easy to see your child in pain, even very briefly, so maybe we need to acknowledge more that it can be difficult for parents, and provide more support and discussion of those feelings. Ultimately I was far more upset by the whole thing than Little Man ever was; once he had a cuddle he cheered up and was totally back to normal in about thirty seconds, probably wondering what his mum was looking so upset about.

Ideological reasons parents choose not to vaccinate

There are a lot of reasons why people choose not to vaccinate. Some religious groups refuse vaccines because of the way they are made, e.g. the use of animal gelatin. There’s also the fact that for those of us lucky enough to live in the developed world, there may simply be an impression that not being vaccinated isn’t much of a risk, because these diseases are now quite rare, or that the illness would easily be treatable if they did catch it. Ironically in that sense, vaccinations are a victim of their own success. These illnesses are only rare because we vaccinate and gain herd immunity. You have to wonder whether our experience with the coronavirus pandemic might help to change people’s perceptions on this one. There might not be a vaccine yet for COVID-19, but I’ll bet people will be queuing up to get it when there is.

Access to vaccinations

Finally, lack of education, lack of access to reliable information or access to healthcare are all potential issues. The anti-vaccination movement is big online and it can be daunting to wade through a deluge of online information about vaccines (including some heart-rending, but completely anecdotal stuff) to determine what is reliable and what is not. That makes it hard to make an informed decision.

Does the NHS do enough to encourage vaccination?

I received letters from the NHS reminding me to book my son’s vaccines, but it simply stated the type of vaccines he was due to receive, the timing of them, and a reminder to book the appointment. Given the concerns about falling rates of vaccination in the UK, this seems pretty surprising to me. Surely that letter is a golden opportunity to convince vaccine hesitant parents of the benefits of vaccinations? A few facts and figures would seem logical to include. After all, when I get a letter from the GP inviting me to have a smear test, it comes with a leaflet which aims to persuade me to have the test done. Given that vaccination benefits not just the individual child, but the whole population through herd immunity, should we not be putting a similar level of resource into encouraging childhood vaccination?

Little Man shortly after his 12 week vaccines

Your thoughts

What are your thoughts on why parents may refuse vaccination? Have you had any experiences which put you off seeking vaccination for your child? Let me know in the comments!

* I didn’t realise until writing this post that there are two h’s in diphtheria. I always thought it was dip-theria. You learn something new every day.

Top Tips for the Coronavirus Outbreak: #002 Vomit Explosion PSA
Uncategorised

Top Tips for the Coronavirus Outbreak: #002 Vomit Explosion PSA

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

Another Public Service Announcement from the Little Man at this difficult time… Not all vomit is coronavirus vomit.

He is honestly such a comity baby, it is unreal! I had expected my baby to throw up to some extent, but he really does seem to have a very sensitive tummy because the vomiting is more or less constant – we even took him to the doctor’s and hospital when he was smaller to get him checked over because of it (at the time he was routinely projectile vomiting as well, which has fortunately reduced in frequency!). They checked him out for various things including cow’s milk protein allergy, and concluded all was well… He’s just very comity.

It’s amazing how being a parent changes your hygiene standards. Before, if got vomit on my clothes, I would of course immediately go change. But now, I know that the fresh clothes will just get covered in sick within about ten minutes anyway, so I have to admit I take a much more relaxed approach!

Why No Woman Should Have To Give Birth Alone – Please Sign The Petition
Uncategorized

Why No Woman Should Have To Give Birth Alone – Please Sign The Petition

The Sickly MamaLeave a comment
Advertisements

Today’s blog post was going to be about a totally different subject, but I’ve just seen this petition and I think it’s so important that I want to share and write about it now.

Due to Covid 19, many hospitals (not just in the UK) are restricting the presence of birth partners on wards before and after births, only allowing their presence for women in active labor. However, there is now concern that some hospitals may be considering stopping birth partners from attending at all, and requiring women to labor in hospital alone.

This is a serious cause for concern. Continuous support from a birth partner is associated with improved outcomes for women and babies, including a reduction in the requirement for interventions. Unsurprisingly, it can be difficult for women to advocate for themselves while they are in the middle of giving birth, and they need to have a supportive, trusted person on hand who can do that for them.

One of the reasons I feel strongly about this is my personal experience. When I gave birth, I was induced and I dilated extremely quickly, much faster than the midwife expected. I had been told they would check on my dilation after four hours, and they were expecting progress of about half a centimetre per hour. Until I reached 4cm dilated I was not going to be allowed gas and air, all I could have was paracetamol or an epidural. After 2 hours I was in so much pain that I asked for an epidural as I couldn’t see how I could cope with twelve hours or more of it, but no anaesthetist was available. Shortly after that, I felt my body starting to push, and told the midwife, but she didn’t believe I could be that far along. It was only because my husband was there and was insistent that they check what was going on, that the midwife looked, at which point she realised that I was fully dilated and in the process of pushing the baby out! Cue a massive panic because she was not ready for that stage of labor (and for some reason this seemed to require a lot of online paperwork) but at least I finally got the gas and air. If my husband hadn’t been there to advocate for me, god knows at what point they would have realised the baby was on its way, because I was in no position to have a debate and in the absence of any real pain relief could barely talk.

For some women, the presence of a birth partner and advocate is even more important. Black women are five times more likely to die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth when compared to white women in the UK. Mixed race and Asian women also suffer a higher risk of death. These women are being let down by our health system and the professionals who attend them. They need to have the support of a trusted partner when giving birth, and are likely to be disproportionately badly affected by any ban on attending birth partners.

In America, where some hospitals had already enacted a ban on birth partners, they have been forced to back down after a public outcry. Let’s make sure that a ban of this nature can’t happen in the UK.

The irony is that in the US, the bans were enacted after asymptomatic pregnant women, who were carrying the virus without knowing, infected hospital workers during labour. But restricting the presence of birth partners obviously does nothing to reduce the risk of labouring mothers transmitting the virus – they still have to be in hospital. Instead, we would protect both women, babies and health workers far better by ensuring that UK midwives, doctors and nurses are provided with adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect them from the risk of transmission from women or birth partners during labour. So far the government and Public Health England have been absolutely woeful at ensuring staff are protected with sufficient PPE in line with WHO guidelines. We’ve heard a lot about companies being drafted in to supply more ventilators – but PPE is just as important.

Please sign the petition here: change.orgMe and Little Man