Journal of a Plague Year: COVID-19 and New Motherhood Experiences

Keywords: birth story, breastfeeding, CDC, COVID-19, mental health, motherhood, postpartum and newborn care, Nebraska
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 71

Abstract

While much public attention in the United States has profiled the struggles of working mothers during COVID-19, few stories center the experiences of mothers of children born during the pandemic. The aim of our project is to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped birth and early infant feeding practices of mothers. We seek to answer: How have public health practices aimed at “flattening the curve” shaped women’s birth and breastfeeding experiences? What effect has the stress of the pandemic and new motherhood had on women’s lives? How do women’s experiences vary by race, class, and ethnicity?

We recruited women from the Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska areas by partnering with local non-profits working with new mothers: Milkworks, a breastfeeding support organization, and the Malone Center’s Maternal Wellness Program, which provides services prenatal and postpartum services to Black, Indigenous, and other women of color in the community. To center women’s experience of the pandemic and tell their own story, we employed PhotoVoice, a methodology that has women take pictures of their daily life and then share and discuss these photos with the interviewer. These photos along with the interview transcript provide a richer context of women’s experiences of new motherhood in the midst of a pandemic. The creation of an ArcGIS Story Tour map serves as a digital exhibit, which features a selection of the photos, audio clips and their transcripts (linking to full audio and transcript), and an interactive map of the location of the interviewees.