Osnat Ben Shitrit, 32, and her fetus died of COVID-19 late Saturday night after being treated at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, the hospital reported Sunday morning.
“My daughter was picked up from us in our thirties with four children,” Roni Siani, her mother, told Channel 13. “She was a flower.”
Ben Shitrit, a Haredi resident of Givat Ze’ev, was admitted to hospital last Tuesday when she began to experience shortness of breath. Her condition rapidly deteriorated until she suffered from multiple organ failure.
The hospital said a multidisciplinary medical team made efforts to treat her. The 30-week-old fetus she was carrying was brought by the emergency C department to rescue it.
Despite the mother being connected to an ECMO machine and the heroic work of the staff, they both eventually died. She had no underlying medical conditions.
Ben Shitrit was laid to rest Sunday afternoon at Har Hamenuhot Cemetery in Jerusalem.
During the funeral, her husband and children cried over her body and told her.
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“You were a brave woman,” said her husband, Yehudah. A week ago you told me you dreamed you saw your funeral … I’m asking you for forgiveness. I love you. I promise I will take care of our children … What would I do without you? ”
He asked his deceased wife to pray for their family from heaven.
The Hadassah staff members were very emotional about the loss, the hospital said.
“The entire Hadassah team shares in the heavy grief of the family,” he said in a statement.
Last week, a 25-week-old fetus died at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital after contracting COVID-19 from his mother. The fetus contracted the virus via a vertical transmission, which means that it was actually transmitted from the mother to the baby via the placenta.
It was the first fetus to die in such a way in Israel.
According to prof. Arnon Wiznitzer, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson campus in Petah Tikva, said a pregnant mother transmitted the virus directly to her baby in only 1% to 3% of cases worldwide.
The country vaccinated for pregnant women last month after it became clear that the third wave of coronavirus was affecting younger people.
More than 2,500 pregnant women were hospitalized with COVID-19 in January, and an abundance of babies were born prematurely while their mothers struggled in intensive care units to survive.
Currently, there are 50 pregnant women or women who have recently given birth, who have been admitted to hospital with the virus, including ten in a critical condition.
In previous waves, pregnant women were not considered at high risk for severe cases of coronavirus.
Health experts believe the increase in young people catching coronavirus is linked to the British mutation. Genetic sequencing of several pregnant Israeli women showed that they were infected with the variant.
Earlier this month, when the Emek Medical Center in Afula simultaneously had three pregnant women in a serious condition, the head of his division for labor and delivery, dr. Raed Salim, appealed to women to be vaccinated.
“I recommend that pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant be vaccinated against coronavirus soon,” he said.
Dr Ortal Neeman, director of medical fetal medicine at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital, said on Sunday: ‘The dilemma of whether to vaccinate is understandable, but unfair. To date, no women in Israel have been diagnosed with a coronavirus after a second vaccination. ‘
She appealed to women to ‘take care of yourself and your fetuses. Any deliberation implies an unnecessary possibility of contamination. ‘
Ben Shitrit’s family said she was reluctant to be vaccinated due to misinformation she received through social media.
