Good Morning America: A COVID-19 Miracle Birth
Good Morning America, KNBC and HealthDay, along with dozens of additional media outlets, recently featured the story of Cedars-Sinai patient Yvette Camacho, who developed a serious case of COVID-19 when she was seven months pregnant. A large team of Cedars-Sinai experts in maternal-fetal medicine and critical care medicine saved the lives of both Camacho and her baby by acting fast to deliver the child in unusual circumstances.
After testing positive for COVID-19 in January, 30-year-old Camacho came down with severe pneumonia. She was intubated and airlifted from San Antonio Regional Hospital to Cedars-Sinai, where maternal-fetal medicine specialist Melissa Wong, MD, took over Camacho’s care.
To protect the life of Camacho's unborn child, Wong and her colleagues performed an emergency cesarean section in the intensive care unit. "We literally converted her little ICU room into an OR room using the tray table that we take our lunches and dinners on with some sterile drapes," Wong told HealthDay.
After the delivery, 30 doctors and nurses waiting outside the room sprang into action. One team placed Camacho on life support, connecting her to a machine providing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), according to KNBC.
Another team from the Cedars-Sinai Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, part of the Maxine Dunitz Children’s Health Center, whisked away the baby, who had been exposed to her mother's anesthesia and couldn’t breathe on her own. They resuscitated and intubated the baby in a hallway nursing station fitted with respiratory equipment before transferring her to the NICU.
Ten days later, Camacho was well enough to breathe on her own. She and her daughter, Emery, recovered in different units at Cedars-Sinai, with hospital staff using video calls to help Camacho bond with her baby, according to a Good Morning America video.
Today, the healthy baby and her mother are back at home, thanks to the lifesaving care they received.
View or read the complete stories from Good Morning America, HealthDay and KNBC.