Emma Willis: I wouldn’t have handled being pregnant in a pandemic very well

Emma Willis says she would have struggled being pregnant during the coronavirus pandemic.

The presenter, 44, said she could only just handle caring for her three children during lockdown, without her body changing as well.

Willis previously trained for three months at Harlow Hospital as a Maternity Care Assistant, working four shifts a week alongside the midwifery team helping to deliver babies.

For her latest programme, Delivering Babies In 2020, she spoke with women expecting during the pandemic.

Willis, who has three children with her husband Busted star Matt Willis, told the PA news agency: “Last year messed with all of us, didn’t it, in some way shape or form and to be able to connect with other people and to be given an insight and have the privilege of going on that little adventure with them, it’s a pretty big one.

“And it’s always an honour to witness that. And if I really kind of think about it and put myself in their position, I wouldn’t have handled being pregnant in a pandemic very well at all.

“I could barely handle being a mum of three and not pregnant and let alone your body changing…

“Other things happening as well as pregnancy, having to go into hospital, regularly being in that environment, which was an environment that none of us really wanted to go near.”

During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, some hospitals banned partners from attending antenatal appointments, including scans, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Willis said she would have been “an absolute paranoid mess” attending hospital alone.

Asked whether she thought the show might make some women feel less alone, she said: “I hope so. Before we started filming this, you try to kind of put yourself in that position.

“And I would have thought I would have been an absolute paranoid mess about having to go and have a baby in hospital more or less most of the time on my own during a global pandemic.

“And I did think before I met everybody, that would be the one thing that we’re most worried about, because that’s what I would have been most worried about.”

– Emma Willis: Delivering Babies In 2020 airs on February 15 on W.