Thread by @DrEricDing

Agonizing decisions for pregnant moms Brazil 🇧🇷 maternity wards as #COVID19 is killing hundreds of moms and babies—no exaggeration. “Remove baby too early and you risk them dying outside the womb, remove them too late & they die from a lack of oxygen.”😢🧵
wsj.com/articles/covid…

2) “doctors forced to deliver her baby son who was pressing up against her disease-ridden lungs.
It was too late. Ms. Souza, an otherwise healthy 30-year-old, died three weeks after the caesarean section.”

3) “She didn’t get to hold her newborn, who was whisked away for fear she would infect him, or say goodbye to her 4-year-old son.
“She was so young, I can’t make sense of it,” said her husband. “Our sons will have to grow up without the affection and protection of a mother.”

4) “More than a hundred pregnant women are dying from Covid-19 every month in Brazil, more than twice the rate last year, according to government figures—a tragedy researchers largely blame on #P1 variant of the virus that first emerged in the Amazon and overwhelmed hospitals.”

5) “In total, more than 800 expectant and postpartum mothers in Brazil have died from the disease since the pandemic began.” ⚠️

6) “At least 1,000 pregnant women have died from complications related to Covid-19 in the Americas, according to an estimate from @pahowho Tuesday. Pregnant women in Brazil face the highest risk of dying from the disease in the region, it said.

7) “Pregnancy and newborn care have been disrupted in nearly half of the countries in the Americas, leaving expectant and new mothers at risk,” said @pahowho @DirOPSPAHO Carissa F. Etienne at a news briefing, warning the pandemic could erase more than two decades of progress.

8) “At least 579 babies under the age of 1 have died from #Covid19 in Brazil 🇧🇷 since the start of the pandemic. Hundreds of babies are being delivered prematurely to save their sick mothers.

9) “Others perish in the womb, starved of oxygen as their mothers gasp for air, or contract the disease and die in the first months of life.” #COVID19

Devastating article. Please read: wsj.com/articles/covid…

10) I worry it is also happening in Brazil’s neighboring countries like Uruguay too…

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1399695228853014538