UCLA Health clinic helps mom heal after near-death birth experience

Marisa Peters, a 38-year-old mom of three, expected the delivery of her third child to be ordinary and uneventful, just like the births of her two other children. But right after her water broke at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Feb. 6, 2019, she became quickly aware that this delivery would be very different.The first sign was a high fever that escalated rapidly. Then she developed an infection and began experiencing full-body convulsions, which were followed by a painful singular contraction that lasted for one hour. During this time, the baby ’s heart rate dipped, but she was lucky to catch a small window of time when her convulsions subsided so she could safely deliver her baby, Beau.“Thankfully, Beau was perfect from the second he arrived into this world,” Peters said. “I remember looking at him and being so grateful that he was healthy, but also knowing that I wouldn’t get that postdelivery golden hour time with him.”That ’s because the focus quickly turned to Peters, who began to hemorrhage severely.“I lost over 6 liters of blood before transfusions and developed a condition known as DIC [disseminated intravascular coagulation], which is a blood clotting disorder,” she said. When remembering how the IVs were oozing with blood, she said, “It was like having an alien experience.”The team caring for Peters put a balloon into her uterus to get the bleeding to stop, which ultimately worked. But she still needed several blood transfusions to manag...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news