Mexico City, Mexico, Jun 16, 2008 / 15:20 pm
The director of Pre-Natal Care at the La Raza National Medical Center in Mexico City, Polita del Rocio Cruz, said this week the open heart surgery and C-section carried out simultaneously on a pregnant woman who had considered aborting her child “was a miracle with the help of God.”
Identified as Elizabeth, the young woman became pregnant at the age of 21 despite her use of contraceptive devices. Her doctor warned her that the pregnancy would be risky and that she should consider abortion.
“They gave me three months to decide,” Elizabeth told the Excelsior news agency, adding that she was also worried “that the baby would be born with a birth defect or some other problem, as such things can develop in any pregnancy during the first three months.”
“I decided to wait. If a problem came up, I would get an abortion. If not, then she’s hanging on to life for some reason,” Elizabeth said. At three months she had an ultrasound and the baby was in good health, so she decided to proceed with the pregnancy.
At 34 weeks she was admitted to the hospital after doctors discovered problems with one of her heart valves that doctors treated when she was 15 years old. They decided to perform both open heart surgery and a C-section at the same time.
Both operations were scheduled for August 17, 2007, and doctors gave her a five percent chance of surviving. “The case of Elizabeth was unique because the valve was blocked by a blood clot that had to be removed, because at the moment of birth there was a 99% chance she would die,” Polita Cruz said. The chances were “one in a thousand. Yes, it was a miracle with the help of God,” she said.
Elizabeth’s daughter, Adriana, which means “gift of God,” weighed just four pounds when she was born. Now she is 12 months old and weighs 19 pounds.