The 'Ugly Betty' alum claims she could feel her heart rate and blood pressure go up before going into labor due to the Covid-19 anxiety during the ongoing pandemic.
- May 23, 2020
AceShowbiz - America Ferrera struggled with extreme anxiety ahead of giving birth to her daughter during the coronavirus pandemic.
The "Superstore" star welcomed baby girl Lucia on May 4, 2020 - a sister for her and husband Ryan Piers Williams' one-year-old son Sebastian. But the experience of giving birth was vastly different for the actress this time around, given that the world is struggling during the Covid-19 crisis. Opening up about her anxiety in the moment during a chat with Katie Lowes on her podcast "Katie's Crib", America explained, "There's the anxiety about the virus itself, which is like you don't want to get sick, you don't want your children to get sick, you don't want your newborn baby to get sick. I try to stay away from the news cycle because I think you can drive yourself absolutely insane…I just know I have to put up my filters because I don't have the emotional capacity to let that in."
"For me, I could feel my heart rate, my anxiety and my blood pressure go up. And also not being able to close my eyes and go to sleep at night because I'm sitting there with all these news stories swirling in my head. And just realising early on I had to be very disciplined about what I let in because it just doesn't serve you, especially in a time where you just don't need that added stress when you're pregnant."
While she had a birth plan in place ahead of Lucia's birth, America added that all her careful plans "went out of the window" when it came to the time of her baby's arrival. And now she's struggling to cope with her postpartum aches and pains, because she can't get to her osteopath or acupuncturist - both of whom helped her feel better after Sebastian's birth.
"I can't walk right now, I can't walk 20 minutes without being like, 'This is painful and I have to sit down.' So all these things that I've come to lean on and felt like I built my support system, none of these things are available to me right now," she sighed. "(I think), you have to let that go and really invest a lot more trust in myself and in the fact that I can do this."
