FOR GOD S SAKE... PLEASE GET THE VACCINE
Tragic family’s plea to pregnant mums
THE heartbroken family of an unvaccinated mum who died from Covid without getting to meet her newborn daughter have begged all pregnant women to get jabbed.
Saiqa Parveen, 37, died in intensive care after catching the virus while carrying her fifth child and before she went into hospital.
Last night her distraught family told of their pain as they implored other expectant mums to get vaccinated.
Releasing a picture of Saiqa fighting for life in hospital – and the beautiful baby she never got to hold – brother Qayoum Mughal, 54, urged: “For God’s sake, get the vaccine.”
Saiqa, from Birmingham, was eight months into her pregnancy when she fell ill in mid-september.
She was offered a Covid shot in summer but insisted she wanted to wait until her baby was born.
As her condition worsened, Saiqa was placed in intensive care and underwent an emergency caesarean section at full term on September 26.
Praying
She died this week – leaving behind her husband Majid Ghafur, 40, and daughters Noor, 12, Imaan, 11, Hibbah, eight, and Ayesha, six – and without ever meeting newborn Dua Maryam.
Qayoum revealed how Saiqa’s daughters made a heartbreaking final online Facetime call just an hour before their mum died on November 1.
He told the Sunday People: “They said, ‘Get up mummy, we are waiting, we are missing you, we love you, why are you leaving us behind? Just get up’. They were praying and in tears.”
One in five of the most critically ill Covid patients are unvaccinated pregnant women, NHS figures show.
Since July, 20% of patients on special lung-bypass machines were expectant mums who had not had their first jab.
Qayoum, a dad of four, said: “I strongly ask all people please get their vaccination, otherwise you will have a bad situation like we are facing.
“Get the vaccine and avoid this sort of tragedy. The family is completely broken.
There is such a big sadness.”
Saiqa had no underlying health conditions and her pregnancy had been routine until she tested positive for Covid on September 14. Two days later she developed breathing problems and was taken by ambulance to Birmingham’s Heartlands Hospital. She was discharged six days later only to be admitted to Good Hope Hospital on September 24 with breathing difficulties.
Qayoum said: “She was on oxygen and on September 25 she called my wife at 11pm and said she had signed documents saying that if her condition worsened, the doctors could operate to take the baby out.
“My wife said she sounded very tired and only spoke for a few minutes. That was the last conversation with any of us.
“The next morning her husband phoned us and told us that she was on a ventilator and they were preparing
to operate. At 2pm, the doctor called her husband and told him they had delivered a baby girl.
“We did not see her because she was on a ventilator in intensive care. She never saw her daughter.”
By now Saiqa was also battling lifethreatening sepsis, a hole in both her lungs, as well as pneumonia and other infections. Qayoum said: “They allowed her husband to see her on October 21 and the doctor said she was very ill.
“The doctor was telling him to talk to her. She was sedated but could hear.
“He was talking to her, telling her that her eldest daughter is asking you to get up and ‘where is her birthday gift’ and
she is missing mum. As soon as he said this, there was one long tear coming from her eye. That was the first and last reaction we had from her on the ventilator.”
Saiqa died just before 10pm on Monday. Her death certificate records respiratory failure and Covid-19 pneumonitis as the cause. Qayoum, who has had Covid himself, said: “Her daughters ask, ‘When’s mummy coming back?’ Saiqa was the most caring person, she couldn’t live without her family. She was a lady of principle.
“She cared for everybody and her mother is still alive. She was very hard working and a helpful lady.” He added: “Her husband is crying but he’s got to be strong for his daughters.” The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation says all pregnant women should be offered a Covid jab after studies proved it is safe.
Previously it was offered only to pregnant women in frontline health and care or to the extremely clinically vulnerable.
More than 85,000 mums-to-be have had a first dose and around 70,000 a second.
Data from over 100,000 Covid vaccinations in pregnancy in England and Scotland, and a further 160,000 in the US, show there has been no subsequent harm to the foetus or baby.
England’s chief midwifery officer Jacqueline Dunkley-bent said: “The Covid-19 jab can keep you, your baby and your loved ones out of hospital.”
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