Ianula tucks
Marcus into her
while she breastfeeds him.
He is a tiny baby, weighing just 2,800 grams, but full of life and healthy.
For 15 weeks there were doubts that the end was such a picture.
Mother and son exemplify another victory against
Covid
while warning of the fragility to which it subjects those infected.
Marcus has been saved by the dedication of a multidisciplinary team from
Hospital La Fe
in Valencia and an expensive medical technology: an artificial lung.
His mother was dragged to the hospital by the third wave of the coronavirus. A 22-week pregnant woman was admitted with
bilateral pneumonia
in mid-January. Day by day his respiratory failure became more complicated. "The situation was desperate, of extreme risk due to the severity of the disease,
the weeks of gestation, insufficient for a viability with guarantees of health
, and the difficulty of not being able to put her in a face down position was added so that her lungs would recover better" recalls Dr.
Alfredo Persales
, director of the Women's Clinical Area at Hospital La Fe.
What decision to take led healthcare professionals to consider resorting to
the
hospital's
Ethics Committee
. "Because removing the fetus prematurely could cause us to die or have serious neurological sequelae. And even the mother, with a severe pneumonic syndrome, could die during surgery," explains Persales. Mostly the decision was to try to continue the pregnancy to save Ianula and Marcus. There was only one option: enter it in Resuscitation to
connect it to an ECMO
, an extracorporeal breathing machine. The mother's blood was cleaned and oxygenated in this artificial lung in order to keep them alive while their organs were inactive. Thus, for three long weeks they kept the family and also the multidisciplinary team made up of specialists in Resuscitation and Pneumology as well as Obstetrics and Gynecology in suspense. "The team is made up of professionals with experience and good training in the treatment of patients with ECMO, which has made it possible for Ianula to have succeeded," admits
Pilar Argente
, director of the Clinical Area of Anesthesia and Resuscitation.
When Ianula's lungs reacted, it was still a little longer.
Marcus was not yet ready to be born and had to wait until the end of week 37 for the time for mother and son to meet.
"They are a warrior and a fighter, but without the support of the doctors this story might have had another ending," admits Marcus' father.
Ianula is not free from Covid, which has left her legs with sequelae, but she is grateful for having saved her life and, with it, that of her baby.
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