Mother with COVID-19 delivers baby in near-death experience
A US mother has warned women to get the vaccine after she delivered her son premature, while she was in a coma and “close to death” with COVID-19.
Kassidy Hazelton was five-months pregnant with her first child when she was diagnosed with COVID-19 in May.
She’s explained that at the time when she was pregnant, she was reluctant to get the vaccine but she says now she feels that was a terrible mistake.
"Vaccines were just released and I did not feel comfortable yet," she said on a fundraising page. "Within five months of pregnancy I contracted it and became very ill."
"Once my temperature started to get out of control, that's when I started to get worried," she told Fox News. "I was scared."
"I had to be sedated and put in induced a coma while pregnant."
Her situation worsened and she came down with double pneumonia and a fungal infection as well.
Soon after on May 31, doctors made the decision to deliver Hazelton's baby boy, Kash, by caesarean at 28 weeks - a situation she described as “unimaginable.”
"They kept the baby in there as long as they could, but I wasn't getting better and in order for me to survive or even him they had to take him out," she said.
Her baby boy, Kash, weighed just under 1kg and was immediately rushed to the NICU where he will stay until at least his due date of August 20.
"I was still in a coma when he was born," Hazelton said. "This has been tremendously hard on me and our family."
Thankfully, the mum-of-one has improved and was taken from her hospital bed to meet her son some weeks after his birth.
The little boy is being closely monitored due to his premature birth and the pressure on his lungs, and he’s had several blood transfusions.
Hazelton remained in hospital for seven weeks and while she is “getting better every day”, she’s still suffering from breathlessness, along with PTSD and anxiety.
"I can't breathe at times and I'm concerned things will get harder," she wrote.
"COVID has wrecked my first pregnancy and I was very close to death. We're very lucky to be alive."
Hazelton has told FOX 10 News she regrets her decision not to get vaccinated, urging other mums not to not make the same mistake.
"Mothers need to take this seriously and there were mothers that did not make it … protect yourself and your baby because it can, and it will kill you," she said.
"Every day I get told we're miracles and I hate to think of it like that, but we really pushed through something unimaginable. I had a tracheotomy which they cut a hole.
'I was knocking on death's doors and I'm still shocked I'm here today."
The federal government in Australia has just updated the national vaccine eligibility checker to include pregnant women, two weeks after they were made a priority in the rollout and were put in phase 1b.
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