CBS News journalist Nikki Battiste, who has reached full-term pregnancy, said she was told she'd have to wear a mask when she goes to the hospital to deliver. In addition to that, she'll have to be tested as soon as she arrives at the hospital. If her test comes out positive, she would have to be isolated as the staff needs to take precautions.
Dr. Dena Goffman, from the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said that they are coming up with ways to allow bonding between a mother who's asymptomatic and feeling well and her newborn baby.
She claims that so far studies have not shown that coronavirus passes through breastmilk, but encourages asymptomatic mothers to wear masks while around their newborns.
Pregnant Women as Asymptomatic Carriers of Coronavirus
Goffman, who co-authored a new study, tested 215 pregnant women for coronavirus and observed whether or not they were showing symptoms of the disease. The participants of the study were admitted for delivery in two New York City hospitals.
Thirty-three tested positive for the virus, but what shocked researchers was the fact that 29 of them showed no symptoms, according to the findings published in the New English Journal of Medicine. Goffman cautioned that a lot could be missed if proper screening was not done.
Only three of these asymptomatic coronavirus-positive women developed a fever before they were discharged from the hospital on an average of two days later. One woman who had initially tested negative also developed an illness after she gave birth. Upon conduction of a retest three days after, her result turned positive. This incident contributed to the issue of false negatives with coronavirus testing.
COVID-19 VS Motherhood
Thirty-six-year-old Yanira Soriano was finally able to see her newborn son for the first time on Wednesday after spending almost two weeks in a medically-induced coma. She was in her eighth month of pregnancy when she started showing symptoms of coronavirus. Later on, she tested positive and was quickly intubated. Her husband, Walter Sanchez, told reporters how doctors conducted an emergency cesarean section while his wife was on the ventilator.
In a similar case, Megan Jeffries, a 27-years-old, gave birth on April 9 to her son after doctors performed an emergency cesarian section on her in Ohio. She remains to be in a coma and has yet to meet her baby boy.
Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, 28, a pregnant nurse who also tested positive for coronavirus, died on Sunday, just hours after giving birth to her daughter. Her tragic death came after doctors initially thought she was showing signs of progress after the emergency cesarean birth. Her newborn daughter survived, but it is unclear if she has tested positive for coronavirus.
Another coronavirus-related birth story is that of an unnamed 37-year-old mother-to-be who died in hospital in Spain on Sunday. She was at home in quarantine, experiencing a high fever, but only went to the hospital when she started experiencing contractions.
Tragically, the baby girl did not survive the emergency C-section, and the mother reportedly died 30 minutes after having a cardiac arrest, which doctors linked to coronavirus, which she had tested positive for.
Pregnancy during the time of coronavirus is something many fear. But for those who have no choice but to face it, doctors urge mothers to take extra measures to ensure safety and to be cautious.
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