Before I tell this story, I need to say something up front: this pregnancy happened several months before the COVID-19 pandemic. My pregnancy was different in every way, starting with a simple fact: I am a woman with cerebral palsy and spasticity, and there is no scientific literature—nowhere, not nationally, not internationally—about what this means during pregnancy. My doctors and I basically watched and waited, monitoring all the standard risks. But every clinic visit, every blood test, every routine checkup meant navigating an endless maze of obstacles: my disability, the inaccessible buildings, my belly getting bigger by the week.
On November 19, 2019, at 31 weeks pregnant, I landed in the hospital. Gestational diabetes. Preeclampsia. Cholestasis. I'd spent months anxious about how my disability would affect pregnancy. Now I was facing the same complications that can strike any woman. Because the truth is: beyond the disability, we are all vulnerable to the same illnesses as anyone else.
My pregnancy was different because I am a woman with cerebral palsy and spasticity AND because there is no scientific literature—nowhere, not nationally, not internationally—about it.
My pregnancy was different because I am a woman with cerebral palsy and spasticityAND because there is no scientific literature—nowhere, not nationally, not internationally—about it.
Once I was admitted to the obstetrics ward, after the emergency intake procedures, I came face to face with something I hadn't prepared for: a hospital not ready to receive a pregnant woman with a disability. The bathroom was shared by all patients and sat at the far end of the hallway. How was I supposed to get there? The bed was ancient—a towering fixed frame from the 1970s. In the final months of pregnancy, bathroom trips are constant. How could I manage? The head nurse and the attending physician made a decision: my mother could sleep beside me on a cot she'd brought from home.
The doctors were excellent. They stabilized my condition and kept my son safe until January 4, 2020. I stayed hospitalized from that November through early January—except for a brief break from December 4 to 11. But those first days after delivery were pure hell. Climbing up and down from that impossibly high bed with roughly forty stitches across my abdomen is an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone.
During those long weeks, I met wonderful people I remain close to today. But I keep wondering: what happens to a woman with a disability who finally overcomes the hesitation to get routine screenings—a mammogram, a pap smear—and then hits a wall? A bed that won't lower. A bathroom she can't reach. Doesn't she risk giving up? Doesn't she become just another woman lost to preventable disease?
Italy already has fewer and fewer children. If we're serious about prevention campaigns, we need real investment. We need to guarantee that every woman—truly every woman—has genuine access to care and prevention.