Texas mother was 'clinically dead' 45 minutes after success birth of triplets During a planned C-section after a “catastrophic” medical event, which typically has a “fatality rate of about 80%, 85%.”
Marisa Christie, 30, and her husband Dylan were excited but nervous when doctors told them at the first ultrasound of their second pregnancy that they appeared to be having triplets. said. today.com.
“They said, 'It's definitely twins.' There might be a third person hiding,” she told the media. “I was completely shocked.”
Christy, 33 weeks pregnant, arrived at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center North in Houston on Aug. 21 for a scheduled C-section.
Her baby was safely delivered by maternal-fetal medicine physician Dr. Amber Samuel and was resting on her when things took a turn for the worse. Christie began to capture.
“My arms shot up and my heart stopped at that moment,” she told the magazine.
Dr. Ricardo Mora, the anesthesiologist who performed the C-section, said he noticed that “she was essentially gray” and “knew something terrible had happened.”
Mora said her mother had experienced similar symptoms 15 years ago and was an anesthesiologist at the time of her birth, but she quickly learned Christy had experienced an amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). This is a rare but often fatal birth complication.
“It's a pretty devastating situation. When that happens, it's about 80%, 85% fatality rate,” Mora told the outlet.
“I asked Dr. Samuel what she did. She told me that they had just started removing the placenta, which is when separation of the placenta and uterus usually occurs.”
Mora said she knew she needed all the help she could get in such a dire situation and immediately called Code Blue, the hospital's emergency code that indicates a patient is in critical condition.
“She wasn't breathing,” Mora explained. “She had no pulse, so we started CPR.”
Christie was bleeding while CPR was performed. It got so intense that doctors kept replenishing Samuel's blood while they tried to close her uterus and stop the bleeding.
As they worked tirelessly to keep her mother alive, Dr. Stephen Maniscalco, a cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon at the hospital, placed Christy on ECMO, a machine that works on the heart and lungs to help the body recover. ) was prepared to be installed.
About an hour after Christie's heart stopped, ECMO was pumping blood to her as she lay unconscious.
“She essentially lost what we think is her entire blood supply,” Mora said.
“We replaced her blood volume. So for 45 minutes, she was clinically dead.”
Doctors were able to stabilize her condition with ECMO, but she started bleeding again and had to be rushed to the operating room for emergency surgery.
“Anything that can bleed bleeds because it doesn't have normal clotting factors,” Samuel told TODAY.com.
Despite using various drugs and devices to stop the bleeding in my uterus, nothing seemed to work.
“We tried to resuscitate her and keep her from having a hysterectomy,” Samuel explained.
“It was very, very dangerous to cut into (her).”
In the end, doctors were left with no choice but to remove Christie's uterus.
“There are a lot of tiny little blood vessels, and under normal circumstances, they clot on their own and stop the bleeding,” Samuel said.
But because Samuel had experienced an amniotic fluid embolism, “what inevitably happens when you block it is that (the blood vessel) lets so much blood into that space that it opens up again.” spoke.
Amniotic fluid embolism, which occurs when fetal material passes from the baby's circulation into the mother's circulation, is considered an “extremely rare event,” a maternal-fetal medicine doctor told the magazine. Ta.
“I feel like I've been struck by lightning,” Samuel said.
“We need people to take care of all organ systems because they all fail quickly.”
“Having access to blood products and ECMO, which Marisa started, is essential to survival,” Samuel said.
Amniotic fluid embolism is considered a rare but potentially fatal medical emergency, and many hospitals are trained to respond if it occurs.
After a near-fatal medical emergency, Christie lost consciousness and remained on ECMO for a week while doctors monitored her, hoping it was enough to save her.
“You can do the best CPR in the world, but if you don't have enough blood to the brain, basically they're alive, but they have brain damage,” Mora said. He told the same media.
Luckily, doctors soon noticed that she was blinking her eyes and could hear people talking. This was a ray of hope that the mother could make it through.
Her condition subsequently improved sufficiently to allow her to be weaned off the ventilator and ECMO.
“Basically, she got stronger and stronger,” Mora said.
Eventually, Christy regained full consciousness, but felt confused and thought she was experiencing the vivid dreams she had during her pregnancy.
Her triplets, three girls named Charlotte, Kendall and Collins, were said to be “perfectly healthy.”
But the mother said it felt “very unrealistic.”
“I remember thinking, 'I don't know these kids.' This is so strange. They feel like they're not real. They feel like they don't belong. ” she said today.com.
“They were already over a week old when I met them. … It took a little while to get the connection with them.”
But that “weird” feeling quickly dissipated when Christie realized that her newborns “could say I was their mother.”
“They respond when I talk to them, not someone else,” she said.
Christy explained that she decided to share her story to raise awareness of amniotic fluid embolism and to give others hope if they or a loved one were to experience a similar event.
“It's rare, but it does happen,” she said. “There are many miracles that have allowed me to live without dying, and I am grateful for them.”
