Pregnant nurse dies of Covid thinking she would protect her baby by not getting vaccinated



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An unvaccinated pregnant nurse in Alabama has died from Covid-19, believing she would protect her baby by not getting vaccinated.

Haley Mulkey Richardson, 32, died on Friday. She was a registered nurse in the Labor and Delivery Unit at Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. She lived in Theodore, Alabama, just south of Mobile.

Family friend Jason Whatley told AL.com Ms Richardson was in good health before she was infected with Covid-19 about three weeks before her death.

“After about three or four days in the hospital, the [obstetrician] told her she was going to lose the baby, ”Mr. Whatley said. “And she just kept getting worse and worse.”

“At one point, they basically told him we had to start treating you like you had no children. We have to do what we can for you because the baby is going to pass anyway, ”he added.

On August 9, Ms Richardson wrote on Facebook: ‘Here in the dark in the wee hours of the morning it’s so easy to pretend this was all a nightmare or that I’m right here in this bed of hospital because of my own problems with Covid. Just because something was wrong with my sweet little girl didn’t mean I thought I was protecting in my own womb.

Four days before her death, she was put on a ventilator. Her unborn child died on August 18 and Ms. Richardson died two days later on August 20.

“She was a nurse,” Mr. Whatley said. “She knew exactly when to go to the hospital, when her heart rate was increasing.

“They wished she had been vaccinated, but other than that when she got sick they did whatever it took. And she’s still dead.

Ms Richardson’s mother, Julie Mulkey, told AL.com that she often talks to her daughter about the vaccine and the nurse decided not to get the shot because she was going to have another child and that she was worried about anaphylactic – allergic – reactions.

“Haley had had anaphylactic reactions in the past,” Ms. Mulkey told the local outlet. “So for that reason she felt it wasn’t safe for her.

“And then, of course, with all the negative reporting that took place, what was she supposed to believe about what the vaccine would do to the breeding ground?”

“Stuff on that would destroy a female’s eggs and that sort of thing, and she wanted to have her second baby.” It scared him to get it.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their guidelines, reinforcing their recommendation that pregnant women should get the vaccine, as new data strengthens the evidence that they are safe and effective throughout. the pregnancy.

“The CDC encourages all people who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant and those who are breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from Covid-19,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement Aug. 11. “Vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe consequences of Covid-19 in unvaccinated pregnant people. . “

“The claims linking Covid-19 vaccines to infertility are unfounded and have no scientific evidence to support it,” Dr. Karen Leigh Samples, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, told AL.com. Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children.

She added that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology “recommends vaccination for all eligible people who may be considering a future pregnancy.”

Ms Mulkey said Ms Richardson’s employer demanded that everyone working at the hospital be vaccinated by November, but that she wanted to wait until after giving birth.

“We’ve talked about this a number of times,” Ms. Mulkey told AL.com. “She said at one point that she was about to do it. And she… she just couldn’t do it.

Southern Alabama has been hit hard by the Delta variant, with several hospitals now overcapacity.

“I had held back my own shot,” Ms. Mulkey said. “Now that I’ve done that, the second is coming later this week. My oldest daughter is the same way.

“And we have a couple across the street waiting, and one afternoon I ran over there, and I said ‘listen, if you haven’t, go on. to do. “

“It absolutely had a big influence on our opinion. Watching what my precious daughter went through was indescribably difficult, ”she said.

The seven-day average of daily new cases was 3,467 on August 24, compared with a seven-day average of 121 new cases on July 5, according to state data. In Alabama, 37% are fully vaccinated – 52.1% are fully vaccinated across the United States.

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