Yesterday I was on L&D
today when we got a call from postpartum that one of the patients who had delivered
earlier had an extremely low bp. I went over after our resident, thinking pp hemorrhage, and that I would help bring the pt back to our recovery room. She was unresponsive, drooling, pupils fixed. We put a pulse ox on; it was 72%. Pulse was irregular. The she just flatlined. The resident froze. I said "Start CPR". She just froze, so I started chest compressions and yelled "Call a code". After about a minute, we got a heart rate, but she never breathed again. It was determined that she had a massive undiagnosed brain tumor that either herniated or bled when she started pushing. She had complained of a headache, but lots of women do.
She has other children and a husband besides her newborn. They took her off life support
edited and she died.
This is the first adult I've ever done chest compressions on. I am very sad about all this.
Please keep this family in your prayers. Her initials are
edited
Lisa
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She had only been at the hospital for about an hour when we called the code, so we didn't really have time to think about what might have happened at the time. They say now it was an amniotic fluid embolism. Knowing the cause, as if we could justify it, doesn't make it any easier.
