A Turkish woman in Izmir, who had a miscarriage as she was diagnosed with COVID-19 and was being treated in hospital, expressed her regret of deciding not to have her vaccines.

Yasemin Özoğlu, 42, lost her baby because she was not vaccinated against the virus. She had miscarried twice before and had finally opted for the in vitro fertilization (IVF) method to get pregnant.

She contracted the virus when she was 28 weeks into her pregnancy and was admitted to hospital when she started having difficulty breathing.

As her respiratory distress worsened, she had to be intubated and her baby died due to a lack of oxygen. The baby was removed by an operation and the mother, whose breathing difficulty continued, remained on a ventilator for 44 days in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Özoğlu said that she regrets not getting vaccinated during her pregnancy.

"I was working from home during my pregnancy and I wasn't coming into contact with too many people and so I didn’t get vaccinated. I heard rumors like ‘the vaccine causes infertility' or 'it may cause a genetic problem in the baby.’ So, I had question marks in my head about the vaccine and I refused to get vaccinated," she told Anadolu Agency (AA).

"If I had gotten vaccinated, my baby would be alive," she said.

Professor Cenk Kıraklı warned about COVID-19 during pregnancy.

"Women are more susceptible to infections during pregnancy," he said.

"Close to 6 billion doses of vaccines have been registered around the world, these include pregnant people. Scientific data showed that COVID-19 vaccines are reliable. Our Ministry of Health also recommends that pregnant women can get the COVID-19 vaccine in every period of pregnancy."