Urgent Message for Pregnant Women:

  After learning of many cases of pregnant women who arrived at hospitals with their oxygen levels below 80%, which is far past the point at which they should have been receiving medical attention, The Lakewood Scoop reported yesterday that pregnant women should be monitoring their oxygen levels.

       Effective treatments are available, TLS reported, but for those treatments to be administered at the right times, medical professionals must be aware of patients’ oxygen levels when they drop.

       As newer strains of COVID-19 emerge, and for reasons yet unknown to medical experts, women, and especially pregnant women, appear to have become more vulnerable than men to coronavirus infections and subsequent complications. Additionally, women may present slightly different symptoms from men who have coronavirus infections, therefore, extra vigilance is needed, especially among pregnant women, who will be eligible for COVID vaccinations in New York on Monday, Feb. 15.

      Women whose oxygen levels are low need medical professionals to monitor them, just in case situations worsen. Hatzalah can get patients in touch with doctors who will with prescribe effective medicines and therapies to keep the severity of infections down to a minimum.

      Many COVID medicines and therapies, however, can only be used in the early days of infections. In addition, the worse infections get, the more difficult they are to treat. Therefore, pregnant women must monitor their oxygen levels and request help if their oxygen levels drop.

    According to multiple medical professionals, what to do:

1. Monitor Oxygen Levels: Pregnant women who have become infected with COVID must check their oxygen levels two to three times a day using pulse-oxen, which are devices that are cheap and can be borrowed from Bikur Cholim organizations. When patients’ oxygen saturation levels dip to 95 or below, Hatzalah should be called, although hospitalization is not necessarily required.

2. Contact the COVID Plasma Initiative (CPI): Pregnant women who become ill with COVID-19 should immediately contact the CPI at 828-4-PLASMA.

    CPI, which is an organization that has helped many patients, can be of tremendous assistance in accessing treatment options and providing steps that lessen the risks of serious complications. CPI also can provide monoclonal antibody treatments that have shown great promise in treating COVID-19 infections.