This chapter examines the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic changed the nature of pregnancy and childbirth in high-income countries such as the UK. At the start of the pandemic, policy makers in the countries used the precautionary principle to classify pregnant women as being at risk and advised them to avoid social contact. In the UK, the precautionary principle was initially used to advise pregnant women not to have a COVID-19 vaccination, a position which later changed. Given the absence of women in the policy process and the relative invisibility of pregnant women, for example in the data, this approach failed to protect them from the multiple risks they faced and limited their agency to manage these risks. By abandoning the accepted evidence-based approach to decision making, policy makers and their expert advisers may have reduced the exposure of some pregnant women to the new virus but increased their social isolation and reduced their agency and capacity to manage a variety of other risks.