In Lima, Peru, Maria Alvarez closed her eyes and asked for one thing behind her face mask, before she gave birth in one of Peru's largest maternity hospital.
“Where’s my husband?″ she said. “I want my husband to come.″ However, the new born's father, Marco Martinez, lost his life one month before because of the novel coronavirus.
Maria, 24, gave birth to her first child, in a special ward for mothers with COVID-19. The mother had an asymptomatic case of the virus.
Since April, Peru's National Perinatal and Maternal Institute witnessed the birth of more than 2,000 newborns, from infected mothers. 120 of the newborns tested positive.
In July, Peru's health authorities published a study, in which they reported that one in four people in Peru's capital, which counts around 10 million people, might be carrying the virus.
In November, Martinez returned to Peru, five years after working in an electronics store in Chile. Alvarez became pregnant before the coronavirus hit Peru, and decided to work fro a friend sewing face masks after the pandemic hit the country.
The husband became ill and lost his life in June. Alvarez took a test that came back positive but never experienced symptoms.
On July 29, she felt contractions and rushed to the hospital with a set of blue clothing for the boy that doctors had said was coming. Unexpectedly, she gave birth to a girl.
The woman didn't know what to name her daughter, however, she said: “What I know,″ she said. ’’Is that I don’t want her to suffer like her mother and father.″
