Home
/ Mom / Childbirth / Reached Covid-19, she is in a coma to give birth to her baby
A young Colombian woman with Covid-19 had to be placed in an artificial coma to give birth to her baby due to the condition of her lungs.
Little Jefferson is a miracle baby! Her mom, Diana Angola, was infected with the coronavirus when she was pregnant. The young woman's lungs were very weak due to the disease. Thus, the doctors immersed the Colombian in an artificial coma in order to perform a cesarean. Little Jefferson was born 14 weeks before the end of pregnancy.
"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.", explained Paula Velasquez, medical specialist in internal medicine at the Versalles clinic in the city of Cali.
The young woman, already the mother of a little girl, was taken to hospital with a high fever. Three days later, she was placed in an artificial coma to give birth to her child by cesarean. Because of her pregnancy, she was kept seated at a 45-degree angle while people with pneumonia are normally laid flat to promote better breathing.
Jefferson was born premature but was not affected by Covid-19. However, the doctors had to resuscitate him because he was having trouble breathing. "A human being can survive from 24 weeks on with a good weight, but with a lot of technology and an effect on neurological development and the lungs"said Dr. Velasquez. The baby remains in an incubator for the time being, but his health has improved rapidly. He has gained weight and is breathing more easily.
"It's a miracle", assures Javier Torres, the intensive care coordinator of the clinic, quoted by the Colombian daily El Tiempo adding that "this is new, because what the literature says is that at this stage of gestation, the baby generally dies from Covid-19 " if his mother is infected with the virus.
The young mother is now cured of the coronavirus and is desperately waiting to be able to bring her son home. "It’s really moving to know that we fought, that the doctors helped us survive", she said.
Diana Angola does not know how she contracted the virus and insists that she respected the imposed confinement.
South America is now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. With more than 2,600 deaths and 80,000 cases, Colombia is the sixth most affected country in Latin America in terms of death and the fifth in terms of infections.