BOSTON, Mass. — New moms often have a hard time finding their rhythm when they begin parenthood, and a new study suggests that the pandemic has made it even harder for first-time moms to bond with their babies.

Chrissy Athens gave birth to her daughter Seeley back in February. Both are perfectly happy and perfectly healthy, but navigating COVID-19 with an infant isn't always easy.

"I'm just trying to create as normal of a childhood as I can despite the pandemic," Athens said.

On a recent morning, that bit of normalcy came from a music class in downtown Boston park. It was a chance for parents to bond with their babies. And while finding the right chord for first-time moms has always been tough, COVID-19 has added another layer of uncertainty and stress these last two years.

"I think it was harder when I was pregnant trying to protect myself and her," Athens said.

It turns out the pandemic has really impacted moms and infants perhaps more than most people realized.

Dr. Carmina Erdei and her colleagues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital just wrapped up a year-long study. What they found was many mothers reported lower ratings of infant bonding because of experiences related to COVID-19.

"There are various psychological risks to maternal mental health and well-being," Dr. Erdei said.

Many new moms said they were feeling symptoms of depression through the pandemic, which in turn made it harder for them to bond with their new baby.

"It’s really a vicious cycle. When mothers are depressed, they have a harder time engaging with their baby," she added.

Dr. Erdei and her team are using all this information to help new and expecting moms. Brigham and Women’s is one of the first hospitals in the country working to establish a perinatal mental health program embedded into their NICU. The hope is it will help new moms who are struggling even before they give birth.

"For us, the lessons learned is that it’s really important to screen for postpartum depression," Dr. Edei added.

As for Chrissy Athens, a lot of the pressures she was dealing with during her pregnancy have subsided. These days she's just trying to spend as much time as she can watching her daughter grow up.

"You can only stress so much. I just want her to not feel like there’s a pandemic happening."

JACKSON COUNTY, Miss. —

For decades, the two little grave markers sat side by side in a Mississippi Coast cemetery, identified only as Baby Jane and Baby Jane II.

The infants, both "Jane Does," were found on different occasions, in 1982 and 1988, in Jackson County rivers and buried by community members, after investigators found no leads in either case.

Then late last year, investigators were able to identify Baby Jane through DNA testing, almost 40 years after her death. This week, investigators exhumed Baby Jane II from her resting place in Jackson County Memorial Park in Pascagoula, with hopes of finding her true name.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell said in a news release that the remains of the infant have been sent to the Mississippi Crime Lab. Once her DNA is collected, investigators hope to use it to build a family tree.

Baby Jane II was found in the Pascagoula River on June 28, 1988, by two men fishing near the wildlife management area in Wade. The child was found tangled in a fishing line.

An autopsy showed that the baby, 3 to 5 weeks old at the time, had died by drowning.

The case has had a devastating impact on the community, even years later.

Gina Marshall was just a young girl at the time, living a couple of miles from where Baby Jane II was found. She remembers crossing the bridge over the Pascagoula River to get to summer school that day. Shortly after she arrived at school, the infant was found.

From that day on, Marshall said, she always had a sickening feeling when crossing the bridge or visiting the river with her family.

"This is something I have carried with me many years, and still to this day tear up over it," she said. "I pray they can find her identity."

Related video: Baby in Wisconsin exhumed who died in 1989

What made the case more painful is that the baby girl was the second child found in a Jackson County river in a decade.

Baby Jane, an 18-month-old infant, was found on Dec. 5, 1982, floating in the Escatawpa River wearing a pink and white checkered dress and a diaper.

In December 2020, DNA testing finally identified her as Alisha Ann Heinrich. Heinrich had gone missing from the Joplin, Missouri, area around Thanksgiving 1982, along with her 23-year-old mother, Gwendolyn Mae Clemons, according to the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. Clemons was planning to start a new life in Florida.

Clemons is also believed dead but her body has never been found. A man who was traveling with the mother and daughter was a suspect in their disappearance, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department said last year. The man has since died.

Season of Justice Corporation, a Baltimore, Maryland, nonprofit, is covering the cost of the lab work for Baby Jane II. Redgrave Research Forensic Services in Athol, Massachusetts, will attempt to build a profile of the child's family history.

The owners of the Jackson County Memorial Park donated the cost of the baby's exhumation.

Marshall said seeing Baby Jane identified has given her hope that DNA testing will be the key to finding out the identity of the second anonymous child.

"It's going to be bittersweet, I'm sure," she said. "The thought of her not having an identity, I think, makes this the saddest. She wasn't a nobody — she belonged somewhere. She would be approximately 33 right now, probably with children of her own, had she been given the chance."

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Willingham is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

OCEAN CITY, Md. —

A good Samaritan on Sunday jumped into a bay to save an infant in an Ocean City, Maryland, who fell into the water below after being ejected in a crash.

Seven others were also injured, according to the Ocean City Fire Department.

Officials said emergency crews were called at 2:47 p.m. to the Maryland Route 90 bridge for a crash involving a vehicle that was half way over the guardrail.

Officials said an infant was ejected from the vehicle that was teetering over the guardrail, landing in the Assawoman Bay below. Officials said a good Samaritan jumped over the guardrail and into the bay, rescuing the infant.

Firefighters secured the vehicle with rescue tools while paramedics treated multiple patients. Seven people were taken to hospitals, and the infant was flown to Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore.

Police continue to investigate the crash.