YouTuber Grace Victory Is 'Awake' After 3 Months in a COVID-19 Induced Coma

British YouTuber Grace Victory, who was placed in a medically induced coma on Christmas Day—one day after giving birth to her son—is now awake. She revealed the news with a simple tweet on March 8.

Victory—who joined YouTube in 2011 and has racked up more than 221,000 subscribers with her posts about pregnancy and body positivity, according to the BBC—later tweeted an update on her almost three-month-old son, writing, "Baby boy is thriving at home."

Victory contracted COVID-19 while she was pregnant and had to deliver her child (whose father is Lee "LPW" Williams) two months early due to respiratory issues.

In a statement shared on Instagram on December 28, Victory's family revealed that she was admitted into intensive care on Christmas Day due to breathing issues, and doctors decided to place her in a coma "to give her body the rest it needs, in order to recover." The family added that she was "currently stable" but asked her followers to keep her in their thoughts and prayers. They also said that Victory's "beautiful baby boy" was "doing so well."

On March 8, the day Victory announced she was out of her coma, her sister Charleigh revealed on her own Instagram account that Victory was still in the hospital.

"There are absolutely no words, other than Thank. You. God!! and thank YOU guys," she wrote. "Let's keep rooting for @gracefvictory until the day she's home, with her baby on her chest and an oat milk chai latter in her hand." It's not known what condition Victory is in or when she'll be able to leave the hospital.

While most pregnant women with COVID don't develop serious or life-threatening side effects as Victory did, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains that contracting COVID-19 during pregnancy can put women at higher risk for severe illness. Pregnant women with COVID-19 might also have an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth, the CDC adds.

Expectant moms can get the COVID-19 vaccine, says the CDC, although there's still only limited data available on the safety of the vaccines during pregnancy. Currently, the CDC says there is no evidence that antibodies formed from COVID-19 vaccination cause any problem with pregnancy, including the development of the placenta.

It's the norm for clinical drug and vaccine trials to exclude pregnant women, so none of the major vaccine manufacturers enrolled expectant moms in their first trials. However, some current and planned trials do now include pregnant women, which will provide a much clearer picture of the safety and effectiveness of the shot for that group.

The latest recommendations from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) state that pregnant women who fall into the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) priority groups should be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and that none of the three current vaccines—the Pfizer-BioNtech mRNA vaccine, the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine, and the Janssen Biotech, Inc. (Johnson & Johnson) Ad26.COV2.S vaccine—should be withheld from pregnant individuals.

The information in this story is accurate as of press time. However, as the situation surrounding COVID-19 continues to evolve, it's possible that some data have changed since publication. While Health is trying to keep our stories as up-to-date as possible, we also encourage readers to stay informed on news and recommendations for their own communities by using the CDC, WHO, and their local public health department as resources.