I was so sick with Covid I didn’t realise I’d given birth to my stillborn son

A HEARTBROKEN mum has told how she was so unwell with Covid she didn’t realise she’d given birth to her stillborn son.

She has shared her harrowing story to urge others to get vaccinated, and avoid the devastation felt by her family.

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Rachel, who doesn’t want her last name used, had no idea her son had been born while she was in a coma with the virus.

Tragically her son, Jaxon, was stillborn when he was delivered at 24 weeks in August.

Rachel, 38, from Bilston in Wolverhampton had wanted to get her vaccine when pregnant, but was discouraged by unclear guidance for mums-to-be at that stage of the rollout.

She said: “I did initially go to get the vaccine, but at the time the advice was not to have it.

“I thought I’d have the vaccine when I’d had the baby, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Speaking about her loss, she said: “I didn’t actually know I had given birth. I was on drugs so they wanted to tell me when I wasn’t sedated, and the obstetrician informed me a few days later.

“My emotions were disbelief – one minute you’re having a scan and a gender reveal, naming the baby and getting excited, and then there was this sudden loss.

“I was only able to see him once. Normally I’d have been able to spend a lot more time with him and to hold him. But I didn’t get to do that because of the circumstances.”

She said things have been difficult for her partner and her 18-year-old son.

“We’re all devastated at our loss,” she said. “We were all very excited at this new life then we were left with nothing.”

As more data has emerged showing the vaccine to be safe, there have been repeated calls for pregnant women to get jabbed.

Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Social Care cited new data which showed 96.3 per cent of pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid-19 symptoms between May and October were unvaccinated, a third of whom needed ventilators.

And another study published in Nature Medicine found preterm births, stillbirths and newborn deaths were more common among women who had the virus 28 days or less before their delivery date, compared to background rates.

Of the women’s babies who sadly died, all had been unvaccinated against Covid.

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In December the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said pregnant women should be regarded as a clinical risk group for Covid-19 and should be given vaccines quickly.

Rachel, from Bilston in Wolverhampton, was in a coma and in hospital for three and a half months after contracting the virus.

She said she would encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, adding: “I would say take it – it’s a two-minute thing that can save months of agony if you end up like I was.”

In November last year experts warned that while uptake of the vaccine among pregnant women was improving, they were worried about some groups shunning the jabs, including younger women, those in the most deprived areas and women from black and minority ethnic communities.

Rachel said it is “really important” everyone gets their jabs.

She thanked staff at both New Cross Hospital’s integrated critical care unit (ICCU) and Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, for their care.