Scared of the deadly new coronavirus that has swept China, pregnant women and new mothers are giving birth alone, keeping their newborns inside and switching to pricier private hospitals to avoid the risk of infection.

One new mother, surnamed Xie, told AFP she gave birth to her baby girl in Wuhan earlier this month alone, because nobody from her family was allowed to come with her to the hospital in the quarantined city where the outbreak emerged in December.

With roads blocked, she had been unable to attend pre-natal checks and was afraid to go to hospitals for fear of cross-infection.

“They let you out when you are delivering a baby,” Xie said, saying she had chosen a special gynecology hospital to give birth.

“When I got there, there was only one ward left,” she said.

“During my time in the hospital I wore masks and gloves all the time and washed my hands very often. I seldom left my ward.”

Some 56 million people in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province have been under quarantine since late January.

State media propaganda videos show volunteers in hazmat suits driving pregnant women to hospitals.

But Xu Tingting from Huanggang told AFP she struggled to find a vehicle to get to hospital when she went into labor two weeks before her due date.

“I was having contractions every 10 minutes, and asked my parents to take me to the hospital. It took them nearly two hours to find a car and I was panicking, thinking I’d have to deliver at home without assistance,” Xu told AFP.

“My husband was in another city and wasn’t allowed to enter the town. It was the grocery store owner in our compound who finally agreed to take me in his delivery van.”

Xie and Xu — who had a healthy boy — are also nervous about going out to vaccinate their newborns.

“I still don’t know what to do yet. There’s still 20 days left for my baby to get vaccinated, I hope by then the situation is under control,” Xie said.