When she gave birth to her son Jefferson last May, Diana Angola was fighting for her survival. The 36-year-old young woman, affected by the coronavirus, was plunged into an artificial coma to be able to give birth.
Due to the condition of the young woman’s lungs weakened by Covid-19, the doctors performed a cesarean section and Jefferson was born 14 weeks early.
«It was a case that generated a lot of stress because we knew that there were few cases of survival reported in a context as serious as that of our patient.“Paula Velasquez, a doctor specializing in internal medicine at the Versalles clinic in the south-eastern city of Cali, told AFP.
The 30-year-old mother of a child was hospitalized on May 15 due to a high fever. Three days later, she was placed in an artificial coma and kept there until the operation.
Because of her pregnancy, she had to be kept seated at a 45-degree angle, while people with pneumonia are normally lying on their stomachs to facilitate their breathing.
Jefferson was born at 24.5 weeks of pregnancy and without the coronavirus. “A human being can survive from 24 weeks with good weight, but with a lot of technology and an effect on neurological development and the lungs“, Emphasizes Dr. Velasquez. But according to pediatrician Edwin Olivo, one of the specialists involved in childbirth, the child quickly started to gain weight and the condition of the infant, still in an incubator, gradually improved.
«He was born with great difficulty breathing, we had to resuscitate him, we had to go through the whole procedure of a critical patientExplains the practitioner. “It’s really moving to know that we fought, that the doctors helped us surviveDiana testifies in a still weak voice.
The young woman, now cured of the coronavirus, does not know how she was infected and her family assures that she strictly respected the confinement imposed as of March 25 in Colombia.
See also – Pregnancy, childbirth: how future mothers experience the pandemic
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