Harry Potter actor Jessie Cave, who is heavily pregnant with her fourth child, was admitted to hospital last weekend after testing positive for Covid-19 last month.
The 34-year-old star, best known as Lavender Brown in the Harry Potter films, shared a photo of herself with her 200,000 Instagram followers, lying in a hospital bed. ‘Anyone else had COVID in third trimester and had it hit them like a tonne of bricks for weeks?’ she wrote.
Cave, who has three children with her comedian partner Alfie Brown, revealed last month that she had tested positive for Covid-19, and was experiencing ‘constant nausea’ from her pregnancy. In a second post, she wrote: ‘Also – has anyone taken the anti-nausea drug and it made them feel worse?’ Replying to her post, comedian Felicity Ward said: ‘Oh honey. I’m so sorry. Like your body hasn’t got enough to deal with. Sending you lots of love lovely.’
Clare Livingstone, Professional Policy Advisor at the Royal College of Midwives, told Grazia: ‘If you are pregnant and test positive for Covid, it is important that you contact your midwife or maternity team to make them aware and they will be able to give you advice and support. Try not to worry though because the vast majority of pregnant women who get the virus will experience only mild or moderate symptoms. If you have no or mild symptoms, you will be advised to isolate and recover at home. If you have more severe symptoms, you might need to be treated in hospital. If you are worried at any point do contact your GP or maternity service for advice.
‘If you are hospitalised with Covid you will be looked after by expert teams who will care for you to recover from the illness. They will also monitor your pregnancy and developing baby, working closely with obstetricians and midwives on your pregnancy care. Although some women who have been vaccinated against Covid may still catch the virus and become ill, the vast majority of pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid are unvaccinated. The vaccine is safe for you and your baby and being vaccinated remains the best way to protect yourself against the virus, and to prevent yourself from becoming seriously ill if you do catch it.’
Last month research found that many pregnant women are still unvaccinated. Data from the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford found that 73 per cent of Asian women, 86 per cent of black women and 65 per cent of white women were unvaccinated at the time of giving birth in October 2021. The charity Wellbeing of Women, which funded the study, called for urgent action to address this.
The same study found that severe Covid infection in pregnant women, especially in the third trimester, significantly increased the risk of premature births, stillbirth or having a baby that needed intensive care.
The NHS says it is critical that pregnant women get vaccinated, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said: ‘Receiving two doses of the vaccine is the safest and most effective way of protecting you and your baby from COVID-19 infection.’
‘How it feels to have Covid when you’re pregnant’
Rebecca Holman
‘I was fairly relaxed when I caught Covid five months into my pregnancy. I’d had my third jab and hadn’t felt particularly vulnerable at any point in the pandemic. But while my young son had it so quickly and my husband barely had a symptom, I was very poorly.
‘For two weeks it felt like the worst cold cough in the world, but when the cough subsided, I found I couldn’t talk more than a few minutes without feeling dizzy and exhausted, and something as basic as hanging out the washing meant I had to nap for an hour afterwards. Being able to look after an active toddler without help was out of the question.
‘It was the kind of deadening exhaustion you feel in the first trimester of pregnancy, and I was still feeling wrecked - and testing positive - six weeks after first getting symptoms. I’ve never had the flu and rarely catch colds, but it felt like pregnancy left my body vulnerable to the virus.
‘It was also impossible to get any specific advice. My midwife couldn’t tell me if the breathlessness was having any impact on the baby, telling me to call 111 if I felt ‘really unwell’, and to call them if I had any bleeding or the baby stopped moving. I was very lucky - my blood oxygen levels always recovered after a rest, and I never felt bad enough to be admitted to A&E, but I came a lot closer to it than I ever expected to. I almost put off having my third jab until after my 20-week scan, but I’m so glad I didn’t wait.’