WAYNE, Mich. (WWJ) -- It's an extra special holiday season for an Inkster woman and her new baby boy.
Nakia Hubbard Heard, 46, was 23 weeks pregnant when she tested positive for the coronavirus during Michigan's third surge in March of this year.
Hubbard Heard was unvaccinated, WWJ's Dr. Deanna Lite reports, and was hit hard by COVID-19. After first being treated at Beaumont Hospital Wayne, she was airlifted to the ICU at Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak with progressively worsening hypoxic respiratory failure.
Hubbard Heard endured time on a ventilator and three surgeries to her vocal cords before giving birth to her fourth child, a healthy boy she named Saint, by emergency C-section three weeks early in July.
She and Saint are now home with the rest of the family, looking forward to Christmas, as Hubbard Heard continues to work on her breathing, walking and memory issues.
Mom's health is improving every day, while Saint just fine... which Hubbard Heard views as a miracle.
"He never had any issues," Hubbard Heard said at a Zoom news conference on Wednesday. "You know, that's why we named him Saint. He's just covered by God, we think the whole time I was pregnant with him."
Hubbard Heard got vaccinated while she was in the hospital with Saint, and now wishes she would have done so sooner.
"It makes so much more sense to prevent (COVID-19) than to have to deal with the consequences," she said.
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"I was one of the luckier ones. Even with all the conditions and all the things that came along with my infection, I'm here and my son is here. But some women don't make it... It just doesn't make any sense to take a chance on you or your baby when there's something out there that can prevent it."
Health officials say most people hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and while pregnant women are at a higher risk of severe illness and death from the virus, they are less likely to get vaccinated than the general public.
Currently only about 30% of pregnant women are vaccinated across the U.S., as federal health officials continue to urge pregnant women to get the COVID-19 vaccine to protect both themselves and their unborn children. More information about the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women is available from the CDC at this link.
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