Planned place of birth and its relationship to emotions and fear in Polish women during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic, which started in December 2019, significantly changed the lives of people worldwide. A group particularly affected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus were women who experienced pregnancy and childbirth during the pandemic, many of whom began to look for an alternative to the hospital as a safe place for delivery.Aim of the study: To examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the choice of place of delivery and whether fear and emotions were determinants of this choice.Materials and methods: This study was conducted on a group of 123 postpartum women who completed an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021. The research tools used were a custom-designed questionnaire that recorded the place of birth and feelings related to the thought of giving birth, and the Generalized Anxiety Questionnaire (GAD-7).Results: Among women who experienced a hospital birth during the pandemic, many of them would now choose to give birth at home, while women who gave birth at home tended not to want to change their decision. Overall, women who gave birth at home and women who gave birth in a hospital did not differ in their levels of perceived generalized anxiety (n = 123, p = 0.439). However, their feelings did differ when it came to a fear of giving birth without the support of a husband. Fear of childbirth without a husband’s support was correlated with generalized anxiety only in women who gave birth at home (rho = 0.674, p = 0.016).Conclusions: Generalized anxiety affected women who gave birth at home and in the hospital. This anxiety was associated with a fear of giving birth without the support of a husband/partner. Women who would not have decided to give birth at home before the pandemic tended to choose home as a place of delivery during the pandemic.