SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio doctor is sharing her experience after getting the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines while pregnant and safely delivering her son.
Dr. Nayeli Rodulfo-Zayas, an emergency medicine physician at Baptist Medical Center, gave birth to her son Benny on Jan. 28, now, she said she is thrilled to share her own experience with mothers in the area.
“We’re just over the moon that he’s here,” Rodulfo-Zayas said. “He’s healthy and that’s all that we can ask for.”
Rodulfo-Zayas said she received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant in December. After the first inoculation, she said her arm was sore and that she felt some aches and chills.
“When I got the second shot in January, I did get fever and chills and I felt achy,” Rodulfo-Zayas said. The symptoms lasted maybe less than a day. I took all the precautions that I could to prevent from getting COVID. And I did not get COVID despite, you know, seeing it every day at work. I was nervous. Of course, I was scared, but I did all that I could,” Rodulfo-Zayas said.
Just a few weeks ago, Pfizer began clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine in pregnant women.
Rodulfo-Zayas said that seeing women enroll in the trials is encouraging for the population at large.
“I think that’s great, I think more pregnant women need to be enrolled in these trials and we should not be forgotten,” Rodulfo-Zayas said. “We do make a huge part of the population, and especially in health care, we women make a big number.”
Dr. Patrick Ramsey, the chief of maternal-fetal medicine at UT Health San Antonio, encourages pregnant women to consider receiving the vaccine.
“We believe the vaccine is very safe,” Ramsey said. “There’s been over 10,000 pregnant women immunized in the United States, and we’ve not seen any adverse health effects from the vaccine.”
KSAT will be diving deeper into pregnancy during the coronavirus pandemic, KSAT Anchor Courtney Friedman will be speaking with experts and host town halls on this topic and talk about her own experience over the next several months. You can submit your questions by clicking here.
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University Health Q&A: COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy
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