A 32-year-old Wisconsin mom met her newborn for the first time last week, nearly three-months after giving birth to her while she was in a coma battling COVID. Kelsey Townsend finally left the hospital after being admitted back in October when she was nine-months pregnant. The mom of four is now back at home with her husband, Derek, and four kids, including baby Lucy.
Mom meets her newborn baby after giving birth in a coma from Covid-19. - @TODAYshow https://t.co/p6rBffVqgs
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 4, 2021
After being diagnosed with the virus in late October, Kelsey started having shortness of breath, coughing and pneumonia. She was placed in a medically-induced coma and on November 4th, she delivered Lucy, who tested negative for COVID and later left the hospital to join her siblings and dad at home. Despite having no pre-existing conditions, the mom’s condition quickly deteriorated and she spent months on a ventilator and an ECMO machine. At one point, doctors warned Derek that his wife needed a double lung transplant to survive and she was placed on a waiting list.
But within days of being added to the transplant list, Kelsey’s condition started improving. By mid-January, she was out of intensive care, weaned off the equipment and no longer needs a lung transplant. She’s now on supplemental oxygen and gets physical therapy, but doctors are optimistic she’s going to make a full recovery. Last week, the grateful mama finally got to leave the hospital and go home to hold her baby girl. “I have been waiting for a long time to meet her,” she says, “and I was overjoyed.”
Source: NBC News