‘Please Be Vaccinated,’ Says The Doctor Is A Warning Story

Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : October 20, 2021

Marisha Kindred Jenkins happened to be 33 weeks pregnant as she began complaining of a chronic cough and vomiting last month, according to her mother. The latter calls her daughter’s death after giving birth a warning story.

During the course of the day on September 4, Jenkins’ mother grew worried that Jenkins’ problems seemed more serious than those of a typical cold and urged her to miss a close member’s birthday celebration.

‘Please Be Vaccinated,’ Says The Doctor Is A Warning Story

Jenkins was taken to a hospital in the Atlanta area later when physicians diagnosed her with Covid-19 plus pneumonia.

Jenkins, who had not been vaccinated, went into labor a few days later and gave birth to her son Jaylen prematurely. She was unable to touch him since she was still infected with the virus.

'Please Be Vaccinated,' Says The Doctor Is A Warning Story

According to Kindred, the 27-year-old was released from the hospital before completely recovering from his injuries. In the days that followed, she struggled to keep her breath. The mother of three from Georgia died on September 23 as a result of complications with Covid-19. Helena Kindred is now appealing to other pregnant African Americans to be vaccinated, stating that she thinks Jenkins would have lived if she had been inoculated when she was pregnant.

The message from Jenkins is simple: “Please, please, please be vaccinated,” she said in an interview. “It’s essential to me that you do it for yourself and your kid,” says the doctor. According to the Centers for Disease and Prevention in the United States, pregnant African Americans have the lowest immunization rates in the country when compared to other racial groups. At the time of the survey, 18 percent of pregnant African Americans, 28 percent of pregnant Hispanic women, 35 percent of pregnant White women, and 48 percent of pregnant Asian girls had received a complete vaccination schedule. It was found that 33 percent of pregnant women received vaccinations in total.

Doctors believe the number of pregnant Black women is problematic, considering that they are more likely than any other demographic group to die due to pregnancy-related problems. Health experts think that the pandemic can potentially exacerbate the Black maternal health crisis, particularly if Black mothers are not vaccinated as a result of the epidemic. A study of maternal fatalities in the United States released by the National Institute of Health in 2019 revealed that 754 women have died throughout pregnancy or even within 42 days of delivery in the United States that year. African-American women fared worse than any group, with 241 African Americans dying during pregnancy, delivery, or immediately after giving birth.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has encouraged all pregnant women to be vaccinated before or throughout pregnancy since the benefits exceed any possible dangers. As per a recent study presented earlier in the month just at Anesthesiology 2021 Annual Meeting, pregnant women who have symptomatic Covid-19 have a more significant proportion of emergency problems than pregnant women who have tested positive with the virus but do not have symptoms. Preterm delivery and infants born ill enough to need immediate transfer to the neonatal unit, or NICU, are other possible outcomes of the infection. However, some Black women have refused to receive the vaccination despite national health recommendations, highlighting the continued skepticism that some Black Americans have toward physicians and science. Discrimination in medical research has a long history in the United States.

African-Americans continue to be underrepresented in immunizations as compared to their proportion of the population as a whole. However, they accounted for 11.4 percent of all new vaccines in the recent two weeks, which is a higher proportion than in the previous two weeks.


Nikki Attkisson

With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.

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