Usa - New York, home boom due to fear of hospital infections

With the coronavirus pandemic, the number of women who prefer to give birth at home or in birth centers to avoid the risk of contagion in hospital grows in New York. With the advantage of being able to have her husband close during and after labor. There is a real boom in the Big Apple and some midwives are more in demand than a hairdresser in normal times. Some are booked until September. To facilitate this phenomenon, Governor Andrew Cuomo also moved, announcing the intention to quickly authorize autonomous 'birthing centers' as safe alternatives to hospitals, especially for low-risk pregnancies.
    "When I learned that the midwife would take me under her care, I felt like I had been accepted into the college of my dreams," Meghan Perez, 35, a Long Island hairdresser told her in the New York Times. 26 week of pregnancy. "One night when things were getting worse and our hospital was overloaded with coronavirus patients, my husband told me 'let's get it born at home'," she said. In about half of the 50 American states, giving birth at home is illegal because it is considered too dangerous. Other states, such as New York, require certain requirements, for example that the midwife has a written collaboration agreement with a doctor or hospital. There are 1,150 midwives in the Empire State, but only a small fraction specializes in home births. This is why they have become very popular.
    Trinisha Williams, director of midwifery at Brooklyn Birthing Center, one of the top three birth centers in New York, revealed that the facility received around 15 requests per week before the pandemic, while it rose to 200 last week. "We are flooded, "he explained, announcing the opening of a second center in Manhattan.