Mothers in London recall dark days of childbirth in 2020 lockdown

Due to Covid restrictions at the time, Deborah’s husband, Morgan could stay for only an hour after their son’s birth, which she says was “tricky” following a Caesarean.

She said: “The day after Felix was born, they changed that rule so if he’d been born one day later, Morgan could have stayed overnight.”

Postpartum care was under strain, with fewer health visitors able to come to mothers’ homes. Deborah was offered an appointment on the Isle of Dogs, more than half an hour away on public transport from her home in Mile End.

She said: “I could barely get out of bed because I was recovering from major abdominal surgery. I just started crying on the phone. And then they said, ‘Ok, we’ll send a midwife to your house’.

“But that’s the only time anyone ever came to our house.”

It was a “major challenge” to be locked down in a small one-bedroom flat for the first months of Felix’s life and there weren’t many opportunities to socialise, which Deborah says was “isolating”.

“My family were in Canada so they didn’t get to meet Felix until he was a year old,” she added.

It was the same for her husband’s family, in Ireland. “So we also had no familial support whatsoever,” she said.

But as many people found, through the most intense two years of the pandemic, Deborah’s local community rallied round.

“One of the things that we have kept since the pandemic – people appreciate their neighbours much more than they used to, especially in London.”