Subscribe
KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S. Air Force Capt. Jennifer Buckingham, a coalition physician assistant in Khakrez District, Kandahar province, tried to deliver an Afghan woman’s baby for eight hours before it was determined the woman needed to be medically evacuated.
Buckingham with the Female Treatment Team assigned to the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force – Afghanistan, did not have the surgical capabilities at her location to do an emergency cesarean-section procedure.
Doctors at Kandahar Airfield determined the best course of action was to fly the mother, along with her husband and mother-in-law, to the Kandahar Airfield Role III Hospital.
Forty-five minutes after landing on the night of Jan. 20 a 5-pound, 12-ounce baby boy was born.
“This was a unique emergency situation where we didn’t have the ability to get the patient to the very capable facilities at the Kandahar Provincial Hospital,” said Maj. (Dr.) Gary Means, surgeon, Special Operations Task Force – South, who acted as liaison between Buckingham and the medical staff at the Kandahar Role III Hospital.
“It would have been at least an additional 90 minutes to get to the Afghan-run hospital,” Means said. “That was time the coalition medical team felt they didn’t have in order to deliver a healthy child. It is very likely the baby would have died, and the mother quite possibly could have died from complications had they not been brought in when they were.”
He is also the first child ever born at the hospital, said U.S. Navy Cmdr. (Dr.) Michael Cackovic, an OB/GYN and periontologist with the KAF Role III Hospital.
“It’s the first time we’ve done this, and it is pretty amazing,” he said.
Nurses, doctors and other medical facility service members moved into the operating room help and look on.
“After seeing all the traumas, seeing people that don’t make it, and then to have this life spring out of nowhere, it’s a rewarding feeling,” Cackovic said.
The complications that led to the medevac stemmed from the baby’s position, one Cackovic called “sunny-side up,” in which the baby’s head is pointed up in the womb making it harder for the baby to come out. This, and due to the small size of the women’s pelvis, required the c-section, he said.
“The child needed some help when he was born in order to start breathing properly, but there were no major complications,” Cackovic said.
The mother and child are recovering and she will wait until she was back in Khakrez to name her son.
“The father was very happy,” Means said. “He said he was pleased that we were able to take care of his family, and he was very satisfied with the treatment both here and in Khakrez.”
| Date Taken: | 01.23.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.23.2011 19:21 |
| Story ID: | 64072 |
| Location: | KABUL, AF |
| Web Views: | 149 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Afghan woman bears first child at coalition hospital, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
