A Texas mother who tested positive for COVID-19 and gave the virus to her unborn daughter had to wait nearly three weeks before she could hold it, a report said Thursday.
Wendy Figueroa was admitted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas on April 30 with symptoms of the coronavirus. She tested positive, and two days later her daughter Alexa was born, USA Today reported.
Within two days, doctors confirmed that Alexa had also tested positive for the virus.
Parkland Hospital in Dallas where Alexa was born with COVID-19.
(utsouthwestern.edu)
Dr. Amanda Evans, an expert on pediatric disease from infection at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who oversaw a case study on Figueroa, said Alexa was likely to be infected in the leg, and not during birth.
The case, published last year in The Journal of Infectious Disease Journal, was one of the first of such cases reported in the United States, USA Today reported.
Dr Mambarambath Jaleel, a medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit at Parkland Hospital, said Alexa was born prematurely and required oxygen, but recovered from the virus without complications.
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Figueroa has meanwhile spent six days in hospital and another 14 days at home in quarantine. She could not take her baby home until 20 days after she was born.
“Looking through a camera, it’s not the same,” she said. “I would cry and see my little girl through the camera because I would say, ‘I can not have my little girl.'”
Her husband and three children were not allowed to visit her or Alexa in the hospital at this time.
Figueroa said the infection came as a surprise because she took the pandemic seriously, always wore a mask and left only the house for doctor visits.
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“That’s why I want to tell everyone who is pregnant to take care of themselves, try to take care of as much as possible, because it’s so difficult,” she said.
