Mom dies with a baby in her belly, but her husband does something unthinkable. They are members of an unnecessarily large fraternity. There’s Charles Johnson, the father of two, whose wife died in Los Angeles during childbirth. In 201 he has turned his anger into advocacy and Darren Horath who lost his fiancee and their newborn daughter in September in rural Indiana.
For him, the emotions are still raw. Justin wakloweck is among them. He lives in Buffalo New York with his six-month-old daughter and has focused his energy on being a new father since losing his wife in August and there’s Craig Chrisley in Ohio, whose first wife died in childbirth in 2012. He hopes that his journey can help other men for whom America’s maternal mortality crisis has hit home. The rate of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States has steadily increased since 1987.
In 2018, the year with the most recent National Data, 658 women in the United States died, while pregnant in childbirth or within 42 days after pregnancy, according to data in the U.S Centers for Disease Control and prevention’s National Vital Statistics reports in January in 2017, the year With the most recent global data, the United States had a higher maternal death rate than the lower income countries of Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Portugal, Qatar, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Uruguay. According to separate data from the World Health Organization and several other groups before this happened to us, I had no clue Charles said about the maternal mortality crisis and losing his wife Kira Johnson.
I was oblivious to the fact that a woman that was in exceptional Health, who was obsessive about her perinatal care, who did everything right who was healthy and who was supposed to be at one of the best hospitals in the country, would walk in and not walk Out to race her boys, he said it just didn’t cross my mind. Charles Darren, Justin and Craig are just some of the partners and fathers who have been left in the wake of America’s disturbingly High maternal death rate.
They are outraged and heartbroken, but also hopeful in taking steps to heal. Theirs is the other story of America’s maternal mortality crisis. There is a failure and disconnect memory of Kira Johnson are prominent around the Atlanta home, where Charles Johnson raises his two sons five-year-old Charles V and three-year-old Langston Family Photos hang on the walls and Charles said that he tells his sons to make mommy proud every Day for me, it’s a feeling of loss coupled with being lost and understanding that there is no way that you can ever feel this void. Johnson said about losing his wife. I didn’t have the option of succumbing to my rage.
I had to focus on what I knew Kira would want me to do and expect me to do, which was making sure that my boys were okay, Above All Things in April 2016, within 12 hours of welcoming his youngest son, Charles lost his wife, Kira Langston was Born via a planned Caesarean section at 2, 33 pm and after Kira was out of the operating room. Charles said that he noticed blood running through her catheter, a sign of excessive bleeding or postpartum hemorrhage. I could see the Foley catheter coming from Kira’s bedside begin to turn pink with blood Charles said, adding that he told doctors numerous times about the bleeding and his concerns. It wasn’t until 12 30, a M the next morning that they finally made the decision to take Kira back to surgery. He said when they took Kira back to surgery and he opened her up.
There were three and a half liters of blood in her abdomen. For more, she had been allowed to bleed internally for almost 10 hours and her heart stopped immediately. At 2, 22 am Carol was pronounced dead at Cedar Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles, according to a lawsuit that Charles filed. She was 39 years old, Charles, the son of prominent TV judge, Glenda Hatchett sued the hospital in 2017 for the death of his wife with the case still pending Cedar Sanaya told CNN in a statement that the hospital had could not respond directly due to privacy laws. Overall, Cedars Sinai thoroughly investigates any situation where the concerns are about a patient’s Medical Care.
The hospital said Charles has been working as an advocate to raise awareness around maternal mortality and especially how women of color in the United States face dramatically higher maternal death rates than white women. Kira. A black woman was in that highest risk group. Black and Native American women are about three times as likely to die from pregnancy or delivery. Complications as white women that disparity increases with age as black and Native American women, older than 30, are four to five times.
As likely to die from complications according to the CDC, this disparity remains. Despite the mother’s socioeconomic status and education level, KIRO was a successful entrepreneur who spoke. Five languages, ran marathons and had her pilot’s license. There’S a failure and a disconnect for the people who are responsible for the lives of these precious women and babies, to see them and value them in the same way that they would their daughters, their mothers, their sisters. Charles said, Charles now works to raise awareness around maternal death.
In 2017 he launched the organization for Kira for moms to advocate for improved maternal Health policies and his late wife’s owner. His work included, advocating for the passage of the preventing maternal deaths Act Congress passed that legislation in 2018, which provides funding for the state and local surveillance of maternal deaths. Some of that funding supports the alliance for Innovation on maternal health or aim, which provides approaches that states can take to improve maternal safety and outcomes, including specific tools and initiatives.
Johnson said that the work being done through the preventing maternal deaths, act and aim has been tremendous, but action is needed to make tools and protocols mandatory when these tools and Protocols are suggestions and not mandate. That’S where the implicit bias and the arbitrary decision-making slips in he said so we’re looking for additional oversight, we’re looking for standards that are mandated and not just suggested, for prenatal care, we’re looking at standards for transparency and, very importantly, accountability while reflecting on Kira’s death.
Charles said, there’s nothing that can prepare you for what it’s like when your child wants to know why mommy isn’t coming home. He hopes that his advocacy can help prevent one dad from having to have these conversations with their children like what happened to this fighting family. God had this mother and child in his hands the whole time Melanie’s pregnancy was normal, so there is no reason for her to think her. Delivery would be like this on July 28. 2010.
Her life would change forever and praise God. His hands and Angels were on the scene, read how the love and support and prayers from her husband. Alongside God’s grace and love delivered both mom and baby home safely see Melanie and Doug’s story about bringing little Gabriella into this world and saving mom’s life. It’S truly a God moment per Melanie on July 28 2010. I delivered my child in the maternity ward of One hospital only to wake up days later in the ICU of another hospital across town, not knowing how I had even got there shocked.
I sat and listened as my family told what had taken place during the past three days. I tried to recall them, but I had no memory. I drew a blank. The following is a story handed down to me for my husband and many others about my untimely death and miraculous survival code. Blue.
While I was in the hospital preparing to deliver my baby girl after 39 long weeks, I signaled to the nurse that something was wrong. I was lightheaded and felt somewhat nauseous. I felt as though I was going to pass out the nurse attempted to reposition me and tried to determine the cause of my lightheadedness. There was no indication for my vitals that something was amiss then I slumped to my side. Apparently, having what seemed like a mild seizure, my husband, who was standing at the end of the bed, witnessed my heart rate and blood pressure.
Flashed zero on my monitors. Our unborn child’s heart rate began to plummet. Precipitously my skin had turned a deep blue. I was not breathing and had no heart rate. I had suffered Cardiac Arrest, I was clinically dead and my baby was still inside of my body doctor signaled code blow code, blue and a team of Staff.
Whisked me to the operating room – or my husband later told me that he prayed in these words, God. I know that this is more than I can handle, which means you have a plan and a purpose in this, and I trust you but please. If this is your will allow me to hold my wife again, he said he has never felt more helpless and Afraid in all his life. By now, family and friends have begun to congregate and they all grabbed hands and began to pray soon after they began to text email, tweet and post statuses on Facebook asking people to pray. For me, the domino effect began to happen by the end of that day.
I was the number one Googled person in Phoenix and one of the top 100 people twittered about as the prayer requests went viral in the OR doctors worked feverishly to save both me and my unborn child, miraculously we both survived this initial insult after our baby was Delivered via C-section, my husband went to see our daughter in the nursery, not knowing if I was dead or alive as he wiped the tears from his face. The nurses asked him the baby’s name, Gabriella, he replied the heroine of God. A nurse told my husband that I have to repeat deadly using the defibrillator and beginning CPR. They had been able to get a faint heartbeat. I had been without oxygen or a pulse for around 10 minutes.
They spent over an hour and a half trying to resuscitate me. The head of the ICU, told those gathered that I had likely experienced an amniotic fluid embolism AFE, which is usually fatal. The doctors had stabilized me but did not believe I would survive and encouraged my family to say their goodbyes. My husband came to my bedside. He took hold of my head and said I love you.
I will always love you. Brady and Gabriella are beautiful, and I love you if you have any fight left, then fight, despite my hopes, promise me that you will follow your guardian angel wherever he leads you where he leads, you will be where God needs you from there. Things went from extremely bad to worse. I received two blood transfusions and was going into DIC a condition of erratic blood clotting, while performing the emergency. C-Section doctors had accidentally cut an artery, so they had to perform another emergency surgery to stop the bleeding.
Miraculously I survived this surgery as well, but because the doctors found five liters of blood in my abdomen, they had to pack down my belly. Simply put. They stuffed my belly full of towels to compress the bleeding. As a result, they could not close my abdomen. So I was still open with increased risk for infection for over 12 more hours because of the heart failure. My ejection fraction was only five percent. Normal is between 55 and 65 Basically, my heart was barely pumping, my lungs had failed and respirator was breathing for me at 100 percent. I was still unconscious and doctors thought that even if I did survive I would be neurologically impaired. I was transferred to another hospital an hour away, an extreme critical condition. This hospital had an ECMO machine which works for the heart and lungs.
Our friend, who was also the priest that witnessed our vows at our wedding, was with my husband at the second hospital. He said to Doug wow when you got married. This is what you said yes to For Better or For Worse in sickness and in health. The doctors at the new hospital wanted to perform another surgery to remove the packing from my open, abdomen and Stitch me up, but just before doing this, they withheld some of the sedation to more accurately assess my neurological State as Doug entered my room with my sister. He saw that my eyes were open and looking around hey babe, he said without hesitation I turned, and he looked at me and my eyes began to well up with tears.
It was clear to him that I was neither brain dead nor impaired word that I might not make it through the operation. They showed me a photo of Gabriella. I began to cry. Mama Bear must have come out because I began to twist and turn to get out of my bed. They sedated me once more and wheeled me off to surgery.
For the first time, my family felt some optimism, even though the odds of my surviving the surgery were slim. However, the surgery was successful and from that point a miraculous recovery began to unfold within the next 24 hours. I was weaned off of all medications, except for the pain medication I was breathing on my own Doug entered my room and sat next to me. He tells me that I touched his face and said: hey babe. How are you he laughed and kissed my hand and cried?
He said he cried for joy and thanked God for this Grace. I praise him, although I have no memory of this incredible event in my life. I am grateful to be alive and told my husband and children in my arms daily. I am thankful for every Facebook, post, Tweet and articles written and posted who reached out and asked others to pray. For me, a stranger words cannot express my gratitude for the multitude of prayers that covered me throughout this dramatic event.
I’M happy to say that prayers worked thanks to the hands of doctors, nurses, many blood donors and an Ever merciful, god Gabriella and I are alive and well, and I have made a full recovery. It has been almost four years and there isn’t a day that goes by that Iran thanked the Lord for allowing me to survive something very few live to talk about. I thank the Lord for inspiring me to choose a pro-life hospital. I thank God for allowing Doug, Brady Gabriella and me to be a family again and for allowing me to another opportunity to speak of God’s infinite, grace mercy and love for all of us. No known living primate has as much difficult giving birth as human beings.
The principal reason giving birth is harder for humans is the size of the infant’s head compared to the size of the pelvic, opening that it has to pass through the during birth. But the size of the pelvic opening is limited by the mechanical demands of walking. Upright the anatomy of the human pelvis reached its current form quite early in human evolution. The pelvis of Australopithecus efferensis, I.E Lucy, was already very similar to a modern human pelvis in shape and proportion.
At that time, though, brain size was still about the same as that of a chimpanzee, so infant head size was likely small enough for Lucy and her kin to have had no more trouble giving birth in modern, chimpanzees and gorillas. So, given that the pelvis has stayed stable for most of human evolution since the split with the common ancestor with chimpanzees, the thing that did change was infinite head size.
As a result of the gradual evolution of ever larger brains, there would not likely have been any single moment in evolution when giving birth suddenly became harder on the body. Instead, the process of giving birth would have gradually become harder and harder. As the brain enlarged than the head size of newborn infants, gravitually increased brain size increased from the 300 to 400 CCs seen in the various Australopithecus to 400 to 600 CC, on average in early homo, I habilis and rudolphinsis, Etc.
During the time period of dragster or Erectus, we see brain size gradually increase from about 600 cc to 1100 CC. Modern humans have brain sizes, ranging from 1200 cc to 2000 CC, with the average of about 1400 CC. Other late homo species, such as the Neanderthals, were in the same range. The Neanderthal range is about 1600 CC, but they also had bulkier bodies and thus bigger pelvises.
On average, given the above, we can hypothesize their difficulty in giving birth reached the level we see in modern humans around 500 000 to 200 000 years ago. This was the period when the last group of homo species, most of whom appeared to have similar brain sizes. Relative to their bodies emerged, there are some other factors which do not fossilize well, that can impact ease or difficulty of giving birth.
We do not know what the relative maturity of the newborn was. We know that in modern humans, babies are born relatively immature, equivalent to a chimpanzee fetus, only three quarters of the way through gestation, so the last Spurt of brain growth can occur outside the womb without being limited by the pelvic size of The Mother.
We do not know if the same pattern occurred to the same extent in other late homo species like neanderthals. God has the power to take us from the depths of Darkness, even the darkness of death, and bring us to the light, and for that I praise him.
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