The 26-year-old Portuguese canoeist Catalina Sequeira suffered an acute asthma attack while she was 12 weeks pregnant. She was in an induced coma for a time and when she was 19 weeks gestation, she went into brain death .
The doctors and the family then decided to artificially keep her alive for three months so that their baby, whom they named Salvador, could be born.
The delivery was scheduled for today, but faced with a “respiratory deterioration” in the mother, the Head of Neonatology at the São João Hospital in Oporto did not want to wait any longer and a caesarean section was performed yesterday, after almost 32 weeks of gestation .
Specifically, Salvador was born with 31 weeks and six days of gestation and 1.7 kilos , a weight that corresponds to his gestational age.
“Our challenge was to keep his body and his organs viable. We guarantee hemodynamic, respiratory and metabolic stability and thus avoid the main problems that arise from the state of brain death, in particular pituitary dysfunction, causing important metabolic disorders,” he explained after Teresa Honrado, from the Intensive Medicine Service.
At 32 weeks it is more feasible for the baby to get ahead without sequelae. Although at the time of delivery she had respiratory problems and required mechanical ventilation, she is progressing favorably and the respirator will be removed in the next few hours.
As an athlete, Catalina won 41 medals, 17 of them gold, in various categories. A sad story with mixed feelings about the loss of one life and the arrival of another.
Via | The country
