NEW ORLEANS - It's a sudden health condition that,?if left untreated, can take the life of an expectant mother and her unborn baby.
Now one mother says doctors at a local hospital saved her life and helped her daughter become one of the tiniest babies in the world to survive.
It's hard for this mother and even her doctors to believe that this day has finally come. At nearly 5 months old and weighing 5 pounds, 8.4 ounces, Brianna White finally gets to go home from the hospital.
"When she was first born?I was scared to touch her, you know because she was so small and she just,?I thought that if?I touched her,?I was going to break her," said Tira White, Brianna's mother.
Brianna is?24-year-old Tira's?first baby. Only 23 or 24 weeks into her pregnancy, something went terribly wrong.
391965"I?was having really bad pressure in my chest and pains, and?I let it go for about two or three days and then we went to the hospital and they told me that was my liver shutting down, my blood pressure was skyrocket and if?I would have waited 12 more hours they would have lost me and her both," Tira explained.
She was taken by ambulance from her home in Saucier, Miss., just north of Gulfport, to Ochsner in Metairie. An emergency C-section was done.
Brianna was just 13 ounces.
"When?I told the mom, you know,?you're dealing with single digits as far as survival goes. There's plenty of institutions, doctors, that would have seen a baby this size and said can't do it," said Dr. Harley Ginsberg, a neonatologist at Ochsner for Children.?
At first she looked lifeless, but there was a heartbeat. Doctors made the right move. Had they waited or if Tira had waited any longer to see her obstetrician,?doctors say they would not have made it.
"When my mom seen her, she like gasped, and said 'Oh my God,'" said Tira. ?
Doctors were worried the breathing tube would not fit. It did. She was given medicine to help her severely underdeveloped lungs.
"She pinked right up and we all just, everybody, nobody said a word to each other.?We all just kind of gazed at each other said 'Okay you know she's in the game. Let's bring her upstairs and see,'"?said Ginsberg.?
Doctors believe this is the second tiniest baby to survive in Louisiana. Medical Watch reported on the smallest 10 years ago, Raegine Donsereaux, who was 12 and a half ounces, and . She did have some developmental delays.
Doctors believe Brianna is one of the 100 smallest babies in the world to survive. Her mother and grandmother spent weekdays at the Ronald McDonald House in town just to be with her in the NICU.
Now,?the good news is, as far as they can tell, her sight, hearing, interaction with others, and weight gain, all seem to be fine. Still she'll have to be closely followed by pediatricians to see if she hits developmental milestones. But so far they are cautiously optimistic.
"We thought we were going to go home on oxygen and actually the doctors and the nurses are still shocked theirselves that she's doing as well as she is," said Tira with a smile.?"We've come a long way."
The baby's mother developed a condition called HELLP Syndrome.
This is why doctor's say early and frequent prenatal care with your obstetrician is important.
The symptoms of HELLP include: ?
- Headache
- Nausea and vomiting that continues to get worse
- Upper abdominal pain
- Vision problems
For more information on HELLP, .
