Oksana, a 31-year-old woman from Lviv, had been struggling to walk for a long time and dreamed of becoming a mother. During her long-awaited pregnancy, her baby was diagnosed with a birth defect.
Before she was born at St Anna’s Hospital of the First Medical Association in Lviv, she begged doctors to save her baby.
Oksana’s health problems began when she was 17. Suddenly, she developed weakness in her legs and acute back pain. Numerous medical examinations and consultations pointed to neurological symptoms with lower limb paralysis, gait disturbance and muscle atrophy. What caused this condition is still not known for certain. At the time, no one knew whether the bedridden girl would even be able to walk. However, Oksana did not give up.
“Recovery was hard and long. Physical rehabilitation, sanatoriums and hard work on myself. I had to learn everything all over again: how to sit up, how to take my first steps. Six months later, I started walking with a cane and still use it to get around,” she says.
Despite all this, Oksana realised her goals and dreams one by one: higher education, work as a Polish language teacher, marriage and pregnancy. She also managed to find the doctor she wanted to give birth to.
“Oleg Enverovich and I met long before I gave birth – at the 27th week of pregnancy. After the first conversation, I immediately realised that he would be my obstetrician-gynaecologist. He is friendly, will always come to the rescue, reassure and advise,” says Oksana about Oleh Dolatkazin, head of the maternity department at St Anne’s Hospital.
“Despite her health problems and the need to constantly move around with a cane, Oksana enjoyed this happy period of her life. But at the 34th week of pregnancy, the baby was diagnosed with hydropericardium, a congenital heart defect characterised by the presence of fluid in the organ wall,” says doctor Oleg Dolatkazin.
The news of her unborn daughter’s pathology stunned Oksana. The woman spent the rest of her pregnancy in anxiety. At each weekly check-up, the doctor tried to reassure his patient. Before the scheduled caesarean section, Oksana begged to save her daughter.
The baby was born weighing 3200 g and 51 cm long. The baby spent the first three days in the intensive care unit, which is mandatory for such a birth defect.
After a thorough examination of the newborn by all the specialists, her mother finally felt relieved. The doctors gave a positive prognosis: the defect did not require surgical correction, but only monitoring. And everything came true. Within a week, the fluid in the baby’s heart disappeared on its own. So mother and child were finally able to go home from the hospital. By the way, Oksana and her husband dream of having a big family.