Nida Pelit gave birth to a healthy girl following the efforts of Turkish doctors who conducted a challenging surgery which is expected to feature in the annals of rare childbirth.
This is the first time in Turkey that a pregnant COVID-19 patient connected to an artificial heart-lung machine delivered a healthy baby through a C-section.
Now recovering in her hospital bed, she can't wait to be united with her daughter, Mihra, who is still under medical observation as she was born prematurely.
Pelit was in the 31st week of her pregnancy when she was infected with the coronavirus. She was taken to intensive care in her hometown Kocaeli in northwestern Turkey as the virus had severely affected her lungs.
Surviving with the assistance of respiratory devices, she spent her days largely unresponsive to treatment. When her health deteriorated, she was taken to a hospital in Istanbul which had the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine. The ECMO is useful for patients with collapsed lungs. Though doctors' efforts saved both the mother and daughter, it took the former another 40 days to leave the intensive care.
Dr. Mustafa Mert Özgür, who operated on the mother, said she was infected with coronavirus 11 days after she was administered her first dose of vaccine. "We were racing against time when we were informed about her condition. We had minutes to connect her to devices and we made it in time," Özgür told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Sunday.
He lamented the low vaccination rate against coronavirus among the expecting mothers and warned that the lack of inoculation poses dangers for the mother and the child.
"When such patients' health worsens, we opt to terminate the birth. Our hospital is specialized in the ECMO treatment for patients in advanced stages of the illness, but it is only applied if the patient is eligible in medical terms. We had a similar case previously and she recovered but this patient was in worse condition. She could lose her baby and was not fit for surgery," he said.
After lengthy consultations, doctors decided to perform a C-section on Pelit while she was still connected to the ECMO. He said they had to wait for the baby's lungs to develop in the womb to perform the surgery.
"The baby briefly stayed in intensive care and the mother was able to live without the ECMO after a while. This is a rare case, maybe a few in the world. We will share this with the international medical community," he said.
Mihra's father, Anıl Pelit, said doctors told him that his wife had only two hours to live without the ECMO. However, the doctors brought the device to the hospital in Kocaeli on time, before transferring the mother to the hospital in Istanbul.
"It was truly a miracle. I am so grateful to all doctors. I will reunite with my wife and daughter soon when both are well," he said.
