. So doctors trained to prevent disease and avert emergencies had to set aside the principles they’d learned in medical school. Instead, they had to let patients’ conditions deteriorate before informing them that their fetuses weren’t viable and an abortion might save their lives. An ob-gyn at Parkland told me, “We essentially watched those patients in labor and delivery until they became infected. As long as there was a heartbeat, we couldn’t do anything.
Five Texas doctors I spoke with mentioned that, in their hospitals, pregnancy complications like sepsis, which is life-threatening, were on the rise. “We are seeing more frequent first-trimester complications,” a Houston doctor said, “and my colleagues and I sense that it’s leading to more death.” Before Roe fell, the U.S. already had one of the highest maternal-mortality rates among rich nations. Last year, a study by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit that conducts and supports health research, determined that maternal death rates among American women were more than triple those of their counterparts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. They also found that Black mothers in the U.S. were nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women.
For days, Zurawski waited at home, wondering: Would Willow’s heart stop? Or would her own life be the first at risk? The answer came when she developed a fever of a hundred and one degrees and her words began to slur—Zurawski had gone into sepsis while waiting. Her husband, Josh, immediately drove her back to the hospital, where she was admitted to the labor-and-delivery unit. Zurawski’s fever peaked at 103.2.
But, after S.B. 8, one ob-gyn who treats patients at Parkland and Clements Hospital in Dallas, Anjali Nambiar, embarked on a study of her own, focussed on morbidity. She wanted to know how women who had pre-viability ruptured membranes, severe preeclampsia, or vaginal bleeding had been treated since the passage of S.B. 8 and another state law, about to take effect, that would make it a state felony to administer abortion medications after seven weeks.
Earlier this year, at a large hospital in Houston, a pregnant woman came into the emergency room. She had severe preeclampsia, the ob-gyn who treated her told me, and it had evolved into something calledsyndrome—a condition that can cause liver and kidney failure in the mother. To the doctor, it was obvious that the patient needed to have the choice to have an abortion to stay alive.
Law Law Latest News, Law Law Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: KUT - 🏆 77. / 68 Read more »