Mother, 22, who caught Covid after refusing vaccine causing her baby girl to be born prematurely and die of the virus says she 'doesn't regret not having the jab'

 A mother whose baby died with Covid after she refused to be vaccinated has spoken for the first time - and said she does not regret the decision to not get the jab.

Little Ivy-Rose Court tested positive for coronavirus when she was born 14 weeks premature at the Royal Preston Hospital weighing just 2lb 30z.

Speaking for the first time, her mother Katie Leeming, 22, of Blackpool, Lancashire, said she did not get vaccinated after hearing 'horror stories' about the effects of the jab on pregnancy forums online.

After catching Covid, she was so sick that she had to give birth at just 26 weeks.

Experts have repeatedly said the jabs are safe for mothers-to-be and their babies.

But Katie said she had no regrets as she quoted the fact her double-jabbed partner caught Covid and believes there has been 'too little' research into the long-term effects on pregnancies. 

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Katie Leeming, 22, of Blackpool, Lancashire said she had no regrets as she quoted the fact her double-jabbed partner caught Covid and believes there has been 'too little' research into the long-term effects on pregnancies

The mother-of-three said: 'I had read about the Covid-19 vaccination on pregnancy groups.

'One lady said she had received the vaccination and that her baby was stillborn the week after.

'There obviously could have been other reasons for this, and the vaccine might not have caused it, but it scared me and put me off.

'Just hearing the horror stories about women having miscarriages made me not want to take the risk.

'I don't know if it would have made a difference or not. I had thoughts in my mind about it - what if I'd had it? Would she still be here today? What if it's my fault?

'But my midwife told me I can't afford to think like that.

'I could have still caught Covid-19 after the vaccination, or worse, if I did have it and something happened anyway, I would have blamed the vaccine.'

Katie came down with cold-like symptoms in early October and a PCR test confirmed she had caught Covid-19.

She said initially she felt 'absolutely fine', but after a week she began feeling palpitations in her chest and her heart rate soared. 

'That day, I didn't feel the baby move at all, and that's why I decided to get in touch with the hospital,' she explained.

'It was there they said that the baby's heart rate wasn't as it should have been, and they had to deliver her there and then.

'I have had two other premature children, so I knew what I was expecting, and what the risks were.

'But I was trying to be as positive as I could, knowing how my other children survived. It wasn't until five days later, when she caught Covid, that she started deteriorating.

'On October 21, she started going down quickly. They told us to go in and be with her, because they weren't sure she was going to make it through the night.'

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Ivy-Rose Court tested positive for coronavirus when she was born 14 weeks premature at the Royal Preston Hospital weighing just 2lb 30z

Katie, a bakery assistant who lives with her partner Lee Court and sons Alfie, four, and Charlie, three, said she was 'shocked' by Ivy-Rose's rapid decline, as her daughter had appeared 'stable' just 24 hours before.

But doctors at the Royal Preston Hospital neonatal unit, where she was transferred after being born at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, said the infant's heart rate and oxygen levels had severely declined.

She continued to deteriorate, and the heartbreaking decision was made to switch off her life support in the early hours of October 22.

Katie added: 'By 11pm, they said too much damage had been done, and the kindest thing to do would be to let her go.

'But they gave us a few hours to hold her and be with her.

'Every hour is different. I have been through all the stages of grief and back again.

'I've gone from feeling completely numb, feeling as if nothing has happened and expecting to feel the baby's movements - because I should still be pregnant with her - to completely heartbroken about how it all happened. I'm devastated.'

Katie and Lee are now hoping to prepare a spectacular send-off for their daughter, with flowers and a horse-drawn carriage.

Katie's friend Simone Threlfall, 25, set up a fundaiser to help with funeral costs.

She said: 'You don't expect to have to pay for your child's funeral. There's nothing that anyone can do to prepare for such a terrible thing.

'There's nothing we can do to make it right. All we can do is help. Katie would never ask for help, but when I told her about the fundraiser she was relieved; it was like a weight had been lifted. It's something so small, but it can mean a lot.'

A spokesman for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust added: 'We are deeply saddened about the death of Ivy-Rose and all our thoughts are with her family at this incredibly sad time.'

Q&A: Everything you need to know about Covid vaccines in pregnancy 

Are vaccines safe for pregnant women?

There is no evidence the vaccines cause a different reaction in pregnant women. 

Side effects reported by expectant mothers are similar to those seen among non-pregnant women. 

Real-world data does, however, show mothers-to-be face a greater risk from Covid, especially if they get infected in their third trimester or have underlying health conditions.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists warn pregnant women are slightly more likely to give birth prematurely or suffer a stillbirth if they catch Covid.

And NHS chiefs last month revealed one in five Covid patients on ventilators were expectant mothers who had not been jabbed.

Could vaccines harm babies in the womb?

Experts have uncovered no proof that the jabs can harm babies in the womb — and insist there's no reason to suspect they would either.

Covid vaccines do not contain ingredients that are known to be harmful to pregnant women or to a developing baby. 

Nor do they contain organisms that can multiply in the body, so they cannot infect an unborn baby in the womb.

Studies of the vaccines in animals to look at the effects on pregnancy have shown no evidence jabs cause harm. 

Research from six studies involving 40,000 women show the vaccines don't raise the risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, stillbirth, or the baby being born smaller than usual or with birth defects. 

Miscarriages occur in 20 to 25 per cent of pregnancies in the UK, while stillbirths happen in one in every 200 pregnancies in Britain.

Can vaccines make it harder to get pregnant?

There is also no evidence the Covid vaccines hamper a woman's chances of getting pregnant. 

The Association of Reproductive and Clinical Scientists and the British Fertility Society says there is 'absolutely no evidence, and no theoretical reason, that any of the vaccines can affect the fertility of women or men'. 

But some concerns have been raised because thousands of women have recorded disrupted period after getting the jabs.  

By October 27, the UK medicines watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), had received 41,332 reports of menstrual cycle side effects after first, second or third doses of the Covid jabs.

Nearly 50million Covid vaccines had been administered to women up to the same date. 

The side effects included heavier or lighter bleeding than usual, as well as more painful periods. But the MHRA said the changes are 'transient in nature' — meaning they are short-lived.  

Period problems are very common — with up to a quarter of women of childbearing age reporting them at any one time —  and are often triggered by stress. 

Why were vaccines not initially offered to pregnant women?

Like other vaccines and medicines, clinical trials of the Covid jabs did not include pregnant women.

This meant the UK's vaccine advisers, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), did not have enough evidence to recommend pregnant women should get vaccinated when jabs were initially rolled out last winter.

But real-world data from the US — where 90,000 pregnant were given doses of Pfizer or Moderna — did not reveal any safety concerns.

So the JCVI advised that these jabs should be offered in the UK. 

And subsequent studies show the jabs were just as effective in pregnant women as those who were not pregnant.