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Double positive: stories of pregnant mothers with COVID-19
Women who faced both COVID-19 and pregnancy during the pandemic’s peak, share their stories
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Pregnancy comes with extra risks during the pandemic. (Unsplash/Courtesy of Anastasiia Chepinska) (Unsplash/Anastasiia Chepinska)
W
omen who faced both pregnancy and COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic went through unfathomable challenges that have remained with them until today.
When the pandemic peaked in mid-2021, expectant mothers faced the risk of terrifying complications as health services found themselves overwhelmed with cases.
As the disease was novel, medical experts could not yet tell how adversely the coronavirus would affect the mother and the child, both in the short and long run.
Constantly crying
Melia Aninda, a 27-year-old housewife from Jombang, East Java, was pregnant with her first child when she caught the virus in July. "I was nine months pregnant at that time, around the 37th or 38th week of pregnancy."
Melia's father and brother-in-law who lived nearby tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks before Melia started to notice symptoms. "I had a runny nose, high fever and anosmia. The emergency room [ER] suggested a swab, I finally got tested and it returned positive."
The family was devastated as Melia was expected to deliver the child just a few weeks away. "I kept thinking about giving birth in an isolation room. I didn't know if I could recover, especially since I had a friend who got COVID-19 when she was pregnant and [she passed away]."
