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A mother who was sick with COVID-19 gave birth prematurely to twins while she was in a medically induced coma.
Perpetual Uke, a rheumatology consultant, was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, last March when she caught the disease. To help her recover, health workers placed her on a ventilator and put her in a coma, as per Sky News on Nov. 18.
Doctors eventually decided to deliver her twins prematurely via an emergency Caesarean section on April 10. The twins, a girl named Palmer and her brother Pascal, were delivered at just 26 weeks.
Following their birth, staff placed the children in incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit of the Birmingham Women’s Hospital. When Uke finally woke up from her coma 16 days after, she was shocked to learn that she had already given birth.
“Coming out of the coma was the worst aspect,” she told Metro. “I had nightmares.”
“I was delusional, I couldn’t see my bump and I thought my babies were gone and all my family had died,” Uke added.
After Uke regained her consciousness, the staff brought her to her twins to meet them for the first time. Uke and her children were discharged in August, 116 days after the twins’ birth.
“Coming home was the real healing point for me,” she said in the report. “The family [is] now all together and we’re all very, very happy.”
Meanwhile, her husband, Matthew, recalled how worried he was when she was still in a coma. Along with caring for the newborns, he also had to watch over their two older kids, Ronald and Claire.
“I had mixed feelings when the twins were brought out,” he was quoted as saying.
“But my wife was still in a coma, sick, I couldn’t talk to her,” Matthew added. “I was happy the twins were delivered but the thing is, is my wife coming home?”
Looking back on her struggle with COVID-19 and the birth of her twins, Uke said, “It’s just a miracle what happened, to come out of this.”
“Sometimes I look at them in tears, I never knew they would make it,” she expressed. “It is amazing what medical professional science can offer.” Ryan Arcadio /ra
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