A Florida woman who didn’t want to get the COVID-19 vaccine because she was pregnant ended up in intensive care and needing to deliver her baby early after she caught the virus.
Kristen Hutton, from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was advised to get the vaccine by her obstetrician but decided against it, fearing it would hurt her baby, reported WPBF.
However, during her ninth month, she visited the hospital after feeling unwell and was shocked to learn she has contracted the disease.
Her condition quickly worsened, requiring her baby to delivered via emergency Caesarean section.
Kristen spend more than week in the hospital, including several days in the intensive care unit (ICU), and required multiple blood transfusions.
Now back at home raising her newborn daughter, Palmer, Kristen says she regrets not getting the vaccine and hopes to educate other mothers-to-be about the dangers they face if they contract COVID-19.
Kristen Hutton, from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, ended up hospitalized and in the ICU after she caught the virus a week before her due date. Pictured: Kristen with her baby in the hospital
Kristen didn’t get the COVID-19 vaccine because she worried it would hurt her baby despite her doctor’s assurances it was safe. Pictured: Kristen, left, with her husband, Derek
One week before her baby was due, earlier this month, Kristen wasn’t feeling well so her husband, Derek, took her to Jupiter Medical Center, reported WPBF.
Kristen believed she was simply dehydrated, but was stunned after the results of her tests came back.
‘They came back in, and when she said: “You have Covid,” I was like: “What?” Kristen told WPBF.
Doctors advised Kristen be admitted to the hospital so they could monitor her up to her due date.
However, her health rapidly deteriorated.
‘My breathing started getting worse,’ Kristen said.
‘They put me on oxygen. I started going downhill from there.’
Pregnant women were not included in the clinical trials for any of the vaccine approved in the U.S., a common practice because researchers do not want to risk the health of mothers-to-be.
However, this group faces an increased risk of COVID-19 complications.
Pregnant COVID-19 patients are twice as likely to be admitted to ICUs and three times more likely to need mechanical ventilation than non-pregnant women with the disease, CDC data show.
A new study found pregnant women with COVID-19 were five times more likely to be admitted to ICUs and 22 times more likely to die than pregnant women who didn’t have the disease
Kristen (left and right) delivered her baby via emergency C-section and eight days in the hospital, four of which were in the ICU, and she required nine blood transfusions. She says she now wishes she had gotten a COVID-19 vaccine
One international study, led by the University of Oxford in the UK, found expectant women with COVID-19 were 22 times more likely to die
According to WPBF, doctors told her that they need to remove the baby via C-section as her health continued to decline.
‘I didn’t care about myself,’ Kristen told the station.
‘I just kept telling them: “Just take the baby out! Just get the baby!”‘
Her infant daughter, Palmer, was delivered safely with no complications, but the same couldn’t be said for her mother.
‘I thought I was going to die,’ she said.
‘When I was laying on the table going into the [operating room], I couldn’t breathe. So they had me lay flat. I said: “Ican’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”‘
Kristen spent eight days in the hospital, four of which were in the ICU, and she required nine blood transfusions.
‘Now all hands are on deck to take care of Kristen,’ her obstetrician, Dr Dudley Brown, Jr, told WPBF.
‘Multiple transfusions, pretty severe anemia that developed.’
Kristen is now at home with her husband raising her daughter, but says she wishes she had gotten the vaccine, and wants other women to speak to their doctors about it.
Brown told WPBF that Kristen is not the only pregnant patient of his who has refused the vaccine, with about half choosing against it.
However, he advises his patients that the shots are safe and effective and that their risk of complications from COVID-19 are much higher than the risk of side effects from the vaccine.
‘I want people to be afraid of Covid, [not the vaccine], because Covid is a monster.’
Source link : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9844221/Woman-didnt-want-COVID-vaccine-pregnant.html
