Becoming a Parent During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria and Germany

Score on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, range 0-30. Interpretation: 0-8 (depression not likely), 9-11 (depression possible), 12-13 (fairly high possibility), 14-30 (probable depression).

Score on the Perceived Stress Scale, range 0 to 40. Interpretation: 0-13 (low stress), 14-26 (moderate stress), 27-40 (high stress).

Score on the Childbirth Experience Questionnaire 2 - factors "Coping ability", "Participation" and "Emotional experience". Range 13 (negative) to 52 (positive birth experience).

Score on the Pregnancy Distress Questionnaire, 10 items scored from 0 to 4. The total score is the sum of all items divided by the number of items (10). The score's range is 0 (low distress) to 4 (high distress).

Score on the resilience subscale from the Pandemic Related Pregnancy Stress Scale, adapted to postpartum participants. It contains 7 items, scored from 1 to 5. The total score range is 7 (low resilience) to 35 (high resilience).

The Social Support score consisted of 3 Items scored on a Likert scale from 0-4, covering the subjective feeling of social support. Its possible range was 0 to 12, with higher scores indicating more social support.

The Child's Social Contacts score is the sum of frequencies with which the child has contact with other people, each item representing one person/relationship (mother, father, siblings, grandparents, other adults, other children), which are independent of each other. The possible range for the Child's Social Contacts score was 0-6, 6 points indicating daily contact with parents, sibling(s), grandparent(s), other adults, and other children, and 0 indicating no contact at all.

The Pandemic Repercussions score comprises five items which inquire about the perceived influence of the coronavirus situation on the pregnancy, birth experience, health and development of the child, financial security, and on the partnership. Each item was scored from -2 (for strong positive influence) to 2 (strong negative influence), making the possible range of the score from -10 to +10, where negative values indicate positive repercussions and positive values indicate negative repercussions.

The Pandemic Distress score consisted of 3 Items that inquired about the participant's worries about the virus affecting herself, her relatives and/or her baby. Each item was scored on a Likert scale from 0-4, so that the possible range of the score was 0-12, with higher values indicating that the participant is more worried. This score is computed only for those participants who had not had Covid-19 themselves, since those who had had Covid-19 were not asked whether they worried to catch it again.

The Birth Risk score consists of 10 items which reflect the medical risk factors for a poor birth outcome: whether singleton or multiples pregnancy, pre/at/post-term birth, newborn weight at birth, type of birth, maternal age, quarantine during birth, history of miscarriage, mother's parity (higher risk if first or fifth/further pregnancy), length of hospitalization for the mother and for the baby. This score had a possible range of 5 to 29, with lower values indicating smaller risk and higher values higher risk.

Spearman correlations between the scores from the primary outcome measures