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A baby born prematurely last month in Pendleton died the same day he tested positive for COVID-19, making him the youngest victim of Oregon’s deadly coronavirus.
David James Wadley Jr. is the first Oregon child aged nine or younger to die from COVID-19. His death was one of six coronavirus deaths reported Thursday.
Ashley Wadley, her mother, was 31 weeks pregnant when she tested positive for COVID-19 around January 11 or 12. She told The Oregonian / OregonLive that she first lost her sense of taste and smell – and was bedridden with a high fever a day after.
Doctors told Wadley over the phone that she had “no chance” of transmitting COVID-19 to the baby, as she remembers.
Wadley, a 29-year-old Athena resident, stayed at home, took Tylenol and drank fluids while waiting to test negative so she could see a doctor in person. But on January 14 – two or three days after testing positive – her unborn son suddenly stopped moving in her womb.
“That’s how I knew something was wrong,” she says. “Before he got sick, he was on the move all the time.”
She tried to get him to move again – by rocking back and forth, for example, and drinking something sweet – but went to the hospital on January 15 because her son still wasn’t moving.
Her son was born that night with an emergency Caesarean. He weighed three pounds and 15 ounces and was immediately airlifted to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, Washington.
Wadley remained at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Pendleton.
At first the baby had to be intubated, but doctors removed the tubes after he could breathe on his own and told Wadley that her son was doing much better, she said.
“He was brave,” Wadley said. “He was doing very well.”
But her son’s condition quickly deteriorated the following night. Wadley said he had developed two brain hemorrhages, which caused seizures, and his lungs were cloudy.
He died on January 17, moments after his COVID-19 test came back positive.
Children are less likely than adults to develop severe cases of the virus, state epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger said in a statement, and infant deaths from COVID-19 are “extremely rare.”
After giving birth, Wadley was never able to see her son alive again.
“I had COVID so they wouldn’t leave me around,” she says.
The little boy had underlying health issues that were undisclosed, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Wadley said she was not aware of any health issues her son may have had, other than his premature birth.
“I did all the tests to make sure it was 100% healthy, no blemishes, nothing at all,” she says.
– Jaimie Ding
[email protected]; 503-221-4395; @j_dingdingding
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