Unvaccinated Mother Gives Birth 14 Weeks Early After Contracting COVID

An unvaccinated woman in Missouri was forced to give birth 14 weeks early after suffering severe complications from COVID-19.

Jasmine Ballard, 26, of St. Louis County, said she is still suffering effects, such as struggling to use her voice, after contracting the virus when she was nearly 26 weeks pregnant.

Speaking to KMOV, Ballard described how she was admitted to hospital on July 31 after having difficulty breathing and was immediately diagnosed with the virus.

"COVID will take you down fast, and faster than you know," said Ballard. "I couldn't eat on my own, I couldn't use the bathroom on my own. I couldn't do anything."

Her condition soon started to deteriorate, resulting in her being put on a ventilator and eventually placed in a medically induced coma on August 4.

While she was in the coma, doctors made the decision to perform an emergency C-section in order to save her unborn baby as Ballard was on the verge of suffering from organ failure.

"I woke up not knowing [that] I didn't have a baby in my belly," Ballard said.

Despite waking from the coma, Ballard still needed life-saving procedures. An ECMO machine was used to pump oxygen into her blood.

Her father, Tommy Greene, said to KMOV: "I got a call, and they said they accidentally nicked the wrong artery in her neck, and she had to be rushed into the OR.

"They repaired the artery, but then they said, well now, that ECMO, that last-ditch effort to save her, was off the table.

"So, they put her back on the ventilator, and for whatever reason she started responding," Greene said. "Her lungs started to heal. They were able to turn that ventilator down daily, and then within a week she was off of it."

Ballard and her baby boy, who she has named Ricky, are both now recovering.

Ricky is currently on a feeding tube and on oxygen, but is expected to be allowed to go home in November, around the time he was originally due to be born.

Ballard is on course to return home to her other three children on Tuesday, once she has finished physical therapy.

Ballard now said she will be getting vaccinated when she gets out of hospital and is also encouraging others to do so.

"I want people to get vaccinated, wear their masks, do whatever they have to do to stay out of this situation," said Ballard.

Ballard's family said the experience has also changed their mind about getting vaccinated against COVID.

"I was dead set against it, like a lot of people, against the vaccine, did not want it," said Greene.

"No one could tell me any long-term effects of this vaccine, but I had to realize, seeing Jasmine go down as quickly as she did, that people are dying from COVID. They're not dying from the vaccine."

Greene has set up a GoFundMe to help pay the medical bills and treatments for his daughter and grandson. The fundraiser has so far managed to raise more than $4,000 in donations.