Reproductive healthcare during the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy

The outbreak of COVID-19 increased gender inequalities worldwide. This paper analyses how adjustments to the pandemic situation introduced in Italy between February and May 2020 affected women and pregnant people’s reproductive healthcare. It illustrates how a national structural approach to maternal and reproductive health was adapted to the Covid-19 epidemic, sometimes delaying essential care and leaving women and pregnant people feeling lonely and uncomfortable. It shows how the measures introduced in antenatal, childbirth and postnatal care, assisted reproduction, and abortion were developed within a clinical and cultural framework, where women’s reproductive health was considered a risky matter and medicalized care the best way to manage it; motherhood was valued as a preferred reproductive trajectory, and a public demographic discourse supporting selective pronatalism entered health settings. At the same time, the pandemic generated unprecedented grassroot demands for more accessible and diverse reproductive care