WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) - In its briefing Thursday, the University of Kansas Health System sounded the alarm when it comes to COVID-19 and pregnant women. Experts with the KU Health System say the Delta variant is hitting them much harder than the original strain and are urging pregnant women to get the vaccine.

"I have never ever been sick like this before," said Lia Countey, a pregnant survivor of COVID.

KUHS doctors say Countey is an example of how COVID is now hitting pregnant women worse than before. After her family had the virus and recovered, she caught it and went downhill fast.

"When I went in for the treatment, my oxygen levels were too low, and my blood pressure was low, so they admitted me to the ER," said Countey.

The doctors say one of the biggest problems is that only 23% of pregnant women in the United States are vaccinated.

"Without a doubt, we're seeing much sicker moms coming in during this Delta wave compared to the Alpha wave that we saw last year. That's our own personal experience and experiences that I have heard echoed from colleagues across the United States," said Maternal-Fetal Medicine Dr. Marc Parrish.

Parrish said one of the roadblocks is fear and hesitancy.

"What they need to realize is that the data is overwhelming in support of pregnant moms getting the vaccine. That there's much more risk to being infected with the actual virus than there is with the vaccine and the potential effects of the vaccine," said Parrish.

After a scary go of it in the ER, Lia and her husband Justin say they're still not sure if they want the vaccine, but they do say the virus is nothing to mess around with.

"We believed it was real. We didn't think it was fake or anything like that. I guess we just didn't have first-hand experience like this until we actually got it," said Justin Countey.

Parrish added that at this point, there are no adverse pregnancy risks with the vaccine, but lots of risks with the virus in pregnancy.

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