Towards the last week of July, a 32-year-old pregnant woman, who had recently come to Kerala from Sharjah, went to the Pariyaram Medical College Hospital in Kannur, Kerala for her first delivery. After eight years of marriage, she and her husband had gone for IVF (In vitro fertilisation) to get pregnant.
When she returned in June, she had tested negative for the coronavirus but on July 24, a week before her delivery, the woman tested positive after an RT-PCR test. Fortunately, she would have no trouble giving birth to twin boys a week later. She became the 50th coronavirus-positive woman to give birth at Pariyaram MCH, and the first in the state to deliver twins while having COVID-19.
“Both mother and babies are fine. In the last rapid antigen test she took, the mother has also turned negative for the coronavirus,” says Dr Malini Raghavan, one of the doctors that did a c-section on the woman.
In addition to carrying twins and being coronavirus-positive, the woman was also diabetic and had hypertension. “She didn’t have a fever or respiratory issues. Her having COVID-19 wasn’t as worrisome as her being diabetic and taking insulin and also having hypertension,” Dr Malini says.
Since she had tested positive, the woman was in an isolation ward at the hospital. The doctors took all precautions following COVID-19 protocol while they operated. On Saturday, the babies were born healthy with a weight of 2.25 kg and 2.35 kg respectively. They will be under observation for 24 hours.
State’s health minister KK Shailaja congratulated the team of doctors led by Dr S Ajith who did the operation. “It is an example of the great service done by health workers,” she said.
The first COVID-19 patient to give birth in the state was also admitted at Pariyaram.