«Nine Months», the podcast that tells difficult stories of women who became mothers during the pandemic

“During one of the phone calls that, at that time, kept us connected with the outside world, a friend of mine told me about the misadventure of her cousin who had found herself giving birth alone, in full lockdown, in Milan, where she had moved from little, with the family hundreds of kilometers away. At that moment I realized the difficulties experienced by women who became mothers during the pandemic and I decided to investigate by looking for other testimonies from friends and word of mouth on social networks “so Chiara D’Andrea, content editor, talks about the origin of his podcast «Nine months”, written and produced together with producer Andre Morbio, with original music created
gives Dario Bertolotti.

Nine months is the leitmotif of the audio series launched on Thursday 23 September, with the first episode, on the main listening platforms: it recalls the duration of a pregnancy, the number of women interviewed, but also the months, between March and December 2020, in which they gave birth . “There are those who at that time discovered they were pregnant, those who had recently given birth and those who were on the verge of pregnancy. To collect the testimony of these women who experienced the happy event at the same historical moment, however, I chose to wait for the post-partum phase to ensure greater serenity “, explains Chiara, illustrating how the choice fell mainly on young working mothers.
to create an authentic narrative of the possibility of combining motherhood and work.
Always current topic, to which the author has decided to dedicate an in-depth study in the episode “The choice”, Where he tried to reflect on what the writer Rebecca Solnit defines the mother of all questions “to do or not to have children?”, Gathering the thoughts of journalists and writers on how important it is to defend and ensure free choice, despite the increasingly unsustainable social pressure. But the real stars of the audio series are Alessandra, Cecilia, Isabella, Licia, Loredana, Marzia, Michela, Sara and Sonia, in their thirties and forties who, together, make up a heterogeneous story about motherhood in an uncertain age. «Alessandra, for example, discovered she was pregnant when the pandemic suddenly blossomed together with the spring. The
restrictions, paradoxically, forced her to announce her pregnancy, even before her mother, to a policeman who stopped her for self-certification while she was going alone for the visit. But the most tragic moment occurred in the ninth month, when she discovered that she was positive and then, fortunately, negativized about 10 days after giving birth. Another testimony that made me reflect and move a lot is that of Loredana, who became a mother in February 2020, but forced to live separated from her medical companion at home for fear of contagion. They divided the rooms into orange and red areas: the man was forced not to see his daughter for about three months ».
These are some of the stories on which Chiara pauses to analyze the complexity of a happy event transformed into an inexhaustible source of fears due to a health crisis, whose echo comes even from Paris, where Sonia, another protagonist, gave birth to the her little one a few days before life was crystallized by the restrictions.
“Noting the lack of safeguards and reassurance for these women, I decided to focus on the” terrible year “, deepening the loneliness of mothers in the Covid era, eager to tell and share their experiences, to instill courage, but above all to focus on spotlight on unfulfilled needs “, affirms Chiara who, intrigued by the change even in the places of motherhood, has set her gaze on the joy of labor no longer shared with her companions, on the absence of visits from relatives and friends, on the discomfort of giving birth wearing the template in a
high temperature environment, on the empty space left around. An acute suffering for those who have had to face childbirth as a positive one, in a period when there was still not much information on how the virus would interact with the fetus nor on the vaccine.

In the podcast, the cases in which pregnancy and viruses collided are told by Silvia Boselli, a midwife with a private practice, in which she mainly dealt with rehabilitation of the pelvic floor. “At the beginning of spring 2020, when the lockdown was announced, Silvia closed her studio and holed up at home, but, at the news of her mother nurse and many colleagues called to deal with the emergency, she felt guilty , she immediately understood that the sofa was not her place and responded to an ad to “enter the trenches” at the “Sacco” Hospital in Milan to help positive women give birth “reveals the author of the podcast in which this episode is called “The scar”, Or that mark left in the soul by a painful experience. Indelible for Silvia and for all the women who found themselves having to endure absences and deprivations, bringing out an unexpected courage.
“During the interviews, these nine women went through the hardest moment of their mothers life. They told me that listening to the podcast episodes reawakened the anguish of those months, but fortunately now the mood is serene, have reunited with their loved ones and enjoy their children, always keeping their guard up “concludes the creator of”Nine monthsWhich, who knows, could become a book or have a sequel, but it will certainly be a precious testimony of the unconscious act of resistance carried out by so many women who have generated life, in a year marked by reports of deaths and suffering.