Woman wakes after 10 months in coma to find she’s amother
An Italian woman who had a heart attack and slipped into a coma 10 months ago has woken to learn that she is the mother of a baby girl.
Cristina Rosi, 37, had a caesarean section to save her baby after a heart attack last July when she was seven months pregnant. After waking from her coma her first word was ‘‘mamma’’.
‘‘We didn’t expect it,’’ Gabriele Succi, her 42-year-old husband, said. ‘‘It was a real joy after so much suffering.’’
Rosi and her daughter, Caterina, risked brain damage due to lack of oxygen last year during the delivery.
Baby and mother were flown on a private jet to a clinic near Innsbruck in Austria, where they are still being treated.
Rosi spoke her first words in front of her husband, who had just arrived at the clinic from the family’s home town of Monte San Savino, in Arezzo province, Tuscany. He was taking over from Rosi’s mother, who had stayed by her bedside for the previous month. She said that hearing her daughter speak was like ‘‘giving birth to her a second time’’. She added: ‘‘The doctors want to get her back on her feet and are convinced by Cristina’s potential.’’
Succi said that the doctors had removed his wife’s tracheostomy tube and were pumping a medicine into her ‘‘that should lead to other physical progress’’.
He added: ‘‘My wife is breathing and swallowing without help. Seeing the progress she has made and thinking back to all the challenges she had to overcome over the past few months, this seems like a miracle.’’
Rosi will receive intense physiotherapy with sessions in the clinic’s pool. The care at the clinic, which costs tens of thousands of euros, has been funded by people living in and around their Tuscan commune.
Margherita Scarpellini, the Monte San Savino mayor, made an appeal for Rosi on Facebook last December. She wrote: ‘‘Apart from donations, it is important to tell Cristina’s story so that help arrives as fast as possible from as many people as possible.’’
Donors on Gofundme have raised € 176,881 (NZ$300,000) but withweeks of further care needed for mother and her daughter, who needs 24-hour attention, Succi said that he was trying to raise up to € 300,000. ‘‘We still need a lot of money,’’ he said. ‘‘But the fact that Cristina has woken up gives us much more force. Cristina responds to stimulus.’’
Succi said his wife burst into tears on hearing an audio message of support from Gianna Nannini, her favourite Italian singer. Just before Rosi’s heart attack, the couple had bought tickets to see Nannini perform.
Women giving birth while in a coma has become more common because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kelsey Townsend, 32, from Wisconsin, gave birth to a daughter, Lucy, while in an induced coma after catching the virus. She is now back at home.
In March, Dalia Avalos, 24, was taken to hospital in Houston, Texas, with severe Covid-19 symptoms. A son, Cash, was delivered by caesarean section and she recovered after 20 days.