Covid-19 victim who gave birth while on ventilator beats the virus

A mother who gave birth while battling Covid-19 on a ventilator has beaten the virus. Megan Sites, 27, was seven months pregnant with her second child when she took herself to Joint Township’s emergency department in Ohio on April 1 after she was having difficulty breathing and was unable to lie flat. Testing uncovered that her lungs had been clotted with coronavirus and she was put on a ventilator while she was still awake. She said she could feel the tube scrape into her trachea as it was inserted. She was later sent to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton.

She asked hospital staff if she could go back on the ventilator, but this time she wanted to be sedated. On April 8, doctors told Megan’s husband that the ventilator could help her get her pregnancy to 30 weeks. However, 20 minutes later he received a devastating call back from doctors that his wife’s lung had collapsed. To save her, doctors said the had to deliver the baby the next day. Sites had to undergo extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (EMCO), which is a ‘near-last resort’ device that temporarily replaces the heart and lungs of patients, according to Dr Suzanne Bennett, a UC Health critical care anesthesiologist.

The baby was then taken to a neonatal intensive care unit. When she woke up she had no recollection of the delivery because of the sedation, she said.

After ten days, Sites was finally able to see her baby, named Jameson, who is still in the NICU, although doctors said he is healthy with no signs of coronavirus.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/26/covid-19-victim-gave-birth-ventilator-beats-virus-12612573/