Mum meets baby delivered during Covid-19 coma
POYNETTE (Wisconsin): Nearly three months after Kelsey Townsend gave birth to her fourth child, the 32-year-old Wisconsin woman was finally face to face with her.
Lucy, now bright-eyed and alert, flashed her a smile.
“Hi. I love you. I love you so much. Yeah, I’ve missed you,” Kelsey Townsend told her.
Kelsey was in a medically-induced coma with Covid-19 when she gave birth to Lucy via caesarean section on Nov 4, not long after getting to SSM Health St Mary’s Hospital in Madison.
She ended up spending 75 days on life and lung support.
She finally met Lucy on Jan 27 – the day Kelsey was discharged from University Hospital in Madison.
“We instantly bonded. She gave me a great big smile and looked at me like she knew exactly who I was and that made me feel so happy,” said Kelsey.
Her oxygen saturation was very low when she arrived at the hospital – so low that a foetus’ brain and other organs could be damaged – and her skin was tinged grey and blue, Dr Thomas Littlefield said via email on Wednesday, so her baby had to be delivered as soon as possible.
Doctors thought Kelsey might need a double lung transplant at the end of December.
But then she started improving – so much that she was moved out of the intensive care unit, taken off a ventilator in mid-January and removed from the transplant waiting list.
Kelsey’s husband Derek Townsend called the experience a “big roller coaster”.
“There were so many times that we thought we were going to lose her,” he said.
Derek added that even his baby daughter seemed to notice someone was missing when his wife was still hospitalised.
“The past three months with Lucy, you know, her head was always moving and she was always looking. And I told Kelsey that I believe she was just constantly looking for her,” he said.
The pair contracted Covid-19 despite taking precautions, Derek said.
As he got better, his wife got worse. That was when they went to the hospital.
“I have everything to live for right here,” Kelsey said. — AP