NY nursing home aide battling coronavirus after giving birth

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A photo from a GoFundMe page shows Kaylee Gabak.

AUBURN, N.Y. - A 24-year-old nursing aide remained hospitalized Tuesday after falling gravely ill following the birth of her child the day after testing positive for COVID-19.

Kaylee Gabak was diagnosed with the virus on Christmas, the Citizen of Auburn reported. She has been intubated at Upstate University Hospital since Dec. 30.

"She’s backed into a corner as far as she can be," her fiancé, Cody Clink, told the newspaper. "But they say she’s getting better every day, and she’s still stable."

Before going on maternity leave from The Commons on St. Anthony nursing facility Dec. 16, her supervisor told Gabak that the last resident she put to bed had tested positive for the virus, Gabak's mother, Cortney Haberlau, said.

More than 100 of the facility's residents have tested positive and 10 have died since last month.

A week later, Gabak had leg pain and nausea, which her doctor attributed to her pregnancy, but when she went into labor Dec. 25, tests showed she had COVID-19 and pneumonia, Haberlau said.

Gabak gave birth to 7-pound, 10-ounce Charlotte Joelee Clink Dec. 26.

Gabak was released from the hospital Dec. 28, only to return the next day when it became difficult to breathe. She was put on a ventilator a day later.

After regular ventilation failed to improve her condition, Gabak began receiving a more intensive treatment, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, which has her medically paralyzed.

Clink called the treatment "the most life support that they could possibly give."