Giving birth & postnatal care

In the last weeks of your pregnancy you will focus more and more towards your upcoming birth. It’s also important to take enough rest and relax during your leave. The corona pandemic does not exactly make this easier and can raise questions, such as whether you can still give birth where and how you want. Fortunately, the answer is still yes. The various professional associations have agreed together that you will still have choice of birthplace.

During labour and birth your birth partner is of course allowed to be present, even if he/she has COVID-19 (symptoms). In most hospitals a second birth partner is also permitted during labour and birth, provided that this person has no COVID-19 symptoms.

Please inform us well in advance if you or any of your birth partner have developed any COVID-19 symptoms like coughing and/or fever. This enables us to take appropriate measures to protect ourselves.

Our postnatal care in the first week after birth has been changed back to our normal routine. This means that we will have at least 4 contact moments in the first week. Two of these contact moments are home visits and two are over the phone. The midwife on duty will give you a call (often with an anonymous number, sometimes with the number of the practice) to ask how you and your baby are doing and to go through the checkups with the kraamzorg. During home visits the birth and possible problems concerning (breast)feeding will be discussed.

If anyone who stays with you at home has COVID-19 symptoms, please let us know, so that we can take our measures for ourselves. We understand that you would like to invite family or friends after the birth, however the advice is still to limit this as much as possible, especially as long as the kraamzorg nurse is with you.

We also recommend to plan a checkup at the practice 6 weeks after birth. In our eyes it is important to see you a few weeks after birth to evaluate the pregnancy, birth and period afterwards together, as well as the physical and the mental recovery.