Momma’s comatose. No, really.

Had pre-natal yoga today, and got minorly empowered-yet-creeped-out when the Calmbirth instructor was talking about how natural and instinctive childbirth should be – and pointed to the example of the woman in the US who gave birth to her baby naturally while still in a coma.

Whoa.

Dug around on the interwebs and found a couple of examples of babies born while the mother was in a coma:

1989: Women’s coma ends after giving birth (caesarean birth)
2001: Woman in coma throughout gestation. Gives birth in near vegetative state (vaginal birth)
2001: 18-year-old gives birth while still in coma (natural birth)
2007: Brain aneurysm-induced coma (caesarean birth)
2007: Coma birth 16 weeks premature (natural birth)
2011: Women induced into coma because of swine flu (caesarean birth)

There are probably many, many other bad-news stories that don’t make the news – but these are the few good ones that do, and made me understand just how frightfully well-engineered our bodies are.

And then I read the one about the Swine Flu victim who got induced into a coma because of suspected Swine Flu barely a few hours after she found out she was 33 weeks pregnant.

Yes. 33 weeks pregnant. And she didn’t know. Talk about a state of unconsciousness.

How do you NOT know you’re pregnant? An extremely cruisy pregnancy, I guess. Perhaps a slight self-delusion that all the bumps and kicks from Week 22 was Just A Lotta Gas. Some women spot through their pregnancies, which might explain the Where Did My Period Go? mystery. But then I got to reading about women who get the shock of their lives when they deliver another human being after “a massive tummy ache”, and yeah. It’s not just the big-boned who hide the pregnancy so well, even they can’t see it. Skinny ones can have absolutely no idea either.

I don’t get it, but it seems to happen often enough… so who am I to judge?

Velle

I come from a much smaller island-city-state-country called Singapore. I’ve been setting down roots in Australia since 2003. I love both countries immensely. In 1986, I became a writer. In 2002, a blogger. In 2004, a wife. In 2011, a mother. Somewhere in amongst all that, I did event and conference management, public relations, marketing, and online communications for over a decade. I’m currently a freelance web manager for a modern dance school, a part-time Communications and Marketing Manager, a part-time writer, and a part-time stay-at-home mother. I don’t sleep much.

Author archive Author website

26 February 2011

Motherhood

caesareans, coma, natural birth, Research

I write about being a Chinese Singaporean and choosing to live in Canberra. I write about being a Christian, a mother, a wife, a woman. I write about discovering joy - in the everyday, in the grand scheme of things, in the sun and in the storm.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28

Finding The Happy

Looking for joy in all the right places