Allyson Felix and me: A Mother’s Day reflection on the health crisis of preeclampsia
When Allyson Felix — now the most decorated American and female track and field athlete in Olympic history — became pregnant in 2018, she was feeling great and training daily. She went to the hospital for a scheduled routine checkup. When a doctor told her she needed to be hooked up for monitoring, Felix thought she’d be able to leave for a photo shoot and come back.
The doctor, though, expressed an immediate need for further tests, which did not go well. Felix’s heart sank. She was rushed into an emergency C-section delivery at 32 weeks due to severe preeclampsia, a condition of persistent high blood pressure that can develop during pregnancy or soon after giving birth.
Her daughter, Camryn, was born at 3 pounds, 7 ounces, and spent 29 days and her first Christmas in the neonatal intensive care unit. Preeclampsia can impair kidney and liver function, cause blood clotting problems, fluid in the lungs, seizures, and, in severe forms or when left untreated, result in maternal and infant death. The only true treatment for preeclampsia is the delivery of the baby and the placenta.
Tianna Madison (formerly Bartoletta), Felix’s teammate on the gold-medal-winning U. S. women’s 4×100-meter track team at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, was not pregnant long enough to take maternity pictures or send baby shower invites.
An unknown cervical complication caused early labor and sent her to the hospital at 26 weeks, well short of the common expected term of pregnancy of about 40 weeks. Her hospital bed was positioned with her feet elevated above her head for four days while doctors injected her with steroids to help speed her son’s lung growth. Upside-down and without food and water, her life was slipping away.
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