Coronavirus and Puerperium: The Midwife Comes Back Home

Abstract

Introduction. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a restructuring of health services worldwide. In the case of midwives in Catalonia, it has required them to systematically perform puerperium home visits again due to the imposition of early postpartum hospital discharges to avoid contagion by the virus. Objectives. The following paper analyzes the care practices, emotions and discourses of a midwife who made postpartum home visits in the province of Barcelona during the months of April 2020 to May 2021. The relationships that the midwife establishes with the postpartum woman and her family are also explored amid extraordinary control measures. Material and methods. Qualitative research with an ethnographic approach and methods through a case study. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually with the same midwife. Results and conclusions. The main results are the satisfaction of the women and the midwife with the care practices of home visit despite the fear, which is a constant in the midwife’s discourse. The complexity of midwife interventions in a pandemic context is shown and the need to restore early puerperium at home is justified due to the bio-psycho-social benefits that the mother and baby bring beyond the Covid period -19.