‘Never got to hold her.’ New Nevada mom dies of COVID after giving birth, sister says
Desperate to have a baby, 35-year-old Kimmie Pavone avoided the COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant for fear of a miscarriage, her sister said.
Pavone died Wednesday at a Las Vegas hospital two weeks after giving birth to baby Jordyn Rose prematurely while on a ventilator for COVID-19, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“She tried so hard to have that baby, and she never even knew it was born. Never got to hold her,” sister Vena Foster told the publication. “And that baby will never know how wonderful her momma was.”
Pavone and her husband, residents of Pahrump, Nevada, had been trying for eight years to get pregnant, KLAS reported. But then Pavone fell ill with COVID-19.
“She was crying on the phone and, ‘It hurts so bad to breathe and I’m coughing like crazy,’” Foster told the station. Her sister was admitted to a Las Vegas hospital Aug. 11.
“She was so scared,” Foster told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. They communicated by sign language in their final talk before doctors put Pavone on a ventilator.
Doctors delivered Jordyn Rose prematurely by Cesarean section later the same day Pavone went on a ventilator when the 30-week-old showed signs of distress. Pavone died two weeks later without regaining consciousness.
“If you ask me, my sister gave her life for that baby,” Foster told KLAS. “I think literally gave her life for that baby and I want that little girl to know that.”
A March study shows pregnant women gain similar levels of antibodies after vaccination as non-pregnant and non-lactating women, McClatchy News reported.
What’s more, these antibodies were also found in the umbilical cord blood and breast milk of every woman included in the study, meaning coronavirus immunity is passed on from mother to baby, according to the study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The finding offers encouraging news for pregnant and breastfeeding women, who face increased risks for severe COVID-19, including intensive care unit admission, mechanical ventilation and death, as well as dangerous pregnancy outcomes such as preterm birth.
More than 99% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States have involved people who are not vaccinated against the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on “Meet The Press” July 4.
More than 220 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide with more than 4.5 million deaths as of Sept. 6, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has more than 39 million confirmed cases with more than 648,000 deaths.
This story was originally published September 6, 2021 at 2:44 PM with the headline "‘Never got to hold her.’ New Nevada mom dies of COVID after giving birth, sister says."