Pregnancy and Covid

The following is a case study of myself at 13 weeks pregnant, getting covid for the second time. I wrote in detail about the difficulty with the first trimester in my previous blog post, but as I entered my 13th week, I was feeling more energized and I seemed to have an appetite again and no more nausea or vomiting.

Because I was finally feeling better, I attended a social gathering on Thursday night. On Friday night, I started to have a sore throat. I received a text from a friend from the social gathering I had been to on Thursday, she told me that she and multiple people had gotten covid. I knew that I also had it, and since I had some Xiao Chai Hu Tang tincture at home, I immediately took a dose (after diluting the alcohol with hot water) and went to bed.

The next day I woke up without a sore throat but I was feeling very tired, and my whole body was sore. Throughout the day I started getting congested with a headache, and my colleague at the clinic brought me the formula Gui Zhi Jia Ge Gen Tang which relieved the headache. Over the next few days, I rested, and after the first 3 days, I was feeling much better. I started to do rice grain moxa on Kiiko’s immune points, and I needled lung 5, lung 7 points as well as kidney 6 as part of the immune treatment.

I would say that overall the second time around covid was a lot harder on my system than the first one that I had last year. I only had one day of not being able to taste or smell and I wondered if it was the strength of this new variety or the pregnancy that caused this time around to be harder.

In two months, I had multiple pregnant patients and pregnant friends that got covid and thankfully none of them developed long covid systems and so far everybody’s baby is healthy.

In January 2022, there were ongoing studies and research efforts to understand the effects of COVID-19 on pregnancy. Some studies suggested that pregnant individuals might have a slightly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant individuals. This includes an increased risk of preterm birth. Additionally, there were concerns about the potential for vertical transmission (transmission from mother to baby during pregnancy or delivery), although this seemed to be relatively rare.

You can read WHO’s information about Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period here.