A premature newborn boy last month in Pendleton died the same day he tested positive for COVID-19, making him Oregon’s youngest victim of the deadly coronavirus.
David James Wadley Jr. is the first Oregon child aged nine or less to die from COVID-19. His death was one of six deaths from coronavirus reported on Thursday.
Ashley Wadley, her mother, was 31 weeks pregnant when she tested positive for COVID-19 around 11 or 12 January. She told The Oregonian / OregonLive that she first lost her sense of taste and smell – and that she was bedridden with a high fever a day later.
The doctors told Wadley over the phone that she “had no chance” of passing COVID-19 to the baby, as she remembers.
Wadley, a 29-year-old Athens resident, stayed home, took Tylenol and drank fluids while waiting for the negative test so she could see a doctor in person. But on January 14 – two or three days after she tested positive – her unborn child stopped moving in her belly.
“That’s how I knew something was wrong,” she said. “Before I got sick, he moved around and around.”
She tried to get him to move again – rocking back and forth, for example, and drinking something sweet – but went to the hospital on January 15 because her son was still not moving.
Her son was born that night through an emergency cesarean section. He weighed three pounds and 15 ounces and was immediately flown to the Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, Washington.
Wadley stayed behind at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Pendleton.
At first, the baby had to be intubated, but doctors removed the tubes after he was able to breathe on his own and told Wadley that his son was much better, she said.
“He was brave,” said Wadley. “He was doing great.”
But her son’s condition quickly deteriorated the following night. Wadley said he had two brain bleeds, which were causing seizures, and that his lungs were cloudy.
He died on January 17, moments after his COVID-19 test was positive.
Children are less likely than adults to develop severe cases of the virus, state epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger said in a statement, and infant deaths from COVID-19 are “extremely rare”.
After giving birth, Wadley was never able to see her son alive again.
“I had COVID, so they wouldn’t let me pass it,” she said.
The baby had hidden health conditions, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Wadley said he was not aware of any health problems his son may have had, other than premature birth.
“I did all the tests to make sure he was 100% healthy, without defects, with nothing,” she said.
– Jaimie Ding
[email protected]; 503-221-4395; @j_dingdingding