A young mother in Utah died a week after giving birth to twins, after developing a rare heart condition.
Morgan Hughes, 23, of Benjamin, always wanted to become a mother and was overjoyed when she delivered a boy and a girl on December 19th, her family said. Hughes recovered well after and was discharged from the hospital days later. The twins, who were about six weeks premature, were sent to the neonatal intensive care unit to get stronger, said Hughes’ father, Brian Hodson.
Hughes and her husband, Sam Hughes, also 23, named the twins Hudson and Georgia and visited them in the NICU, eager to bring them home. But around a week after she gave birth, Hughes started feeling off. Hodson said she vomited and fainted, and thought she may have had a seizure. She returned to the hospital, where Hodson said doctors discovered fluid around her heart. They diagnosed her with postpartum cardiomyopathy, also called peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart failure that happens when the heart muscle weakens toward the end of pregnancy or up to about five months following delivery. In some cases, peripartum cardiomyopathy can be managed with medication to improve cardiac function and combat fluid retention if diagnosed early enough. But the condition can be difficult to detect because symptoms of cardiac failure — such as shortness of breath and swelling in the feet and legs — can mimic pregnancy symptoms, Hughes deteriorated rapidly and received care in the intensive care unit, Hodson said. On December 28th, she died after going into cardiac arrest. “It’s been devastating. We certainly weren’t expecting this at all,” said Hodson, who lives in Cedar Hills, Utah, about 30 miles north of Benjamin. Hughes could not wait to start life as a family of four, Hodson said, adding that the twins’ delivery had been “extremely smooth.” “She’s always wanted to be a mom and has loved babies forever,” he said. “She was known as the baby whisperer, even when she was young.”The cause of peripartum cardiomyopathy is not clea
Postpartum Cardiomyopathy Heart Failure Pregnancy Complications Infant Mortality Motherhood
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