MADISON — Nearly three months after being diagnosed with COVID-19, a Wisconsin woman was discharged from the hospital and finally able to hold her baby she gave birth to while in a coma.
UW Health says Kelsey Townsend was nine months pregnant with her baby, Lucy, when she was diagnosed with COVID-19 in October. Kelsey was in a medically induced coma and gave birth to Lucy at University Hospital on Nov. 4.
Kelsey spent several months on an ECMO machine and a ventilator. Doctors believed she would need a double lung transplant to survive after her condition worsened.
UW Health says Kelsey's condition improved just days after being added to the lung transplant waiting list. Officials say she was moved out of the ICU, taken off the ventilator in mid-January and removed from the transplant waiting list.
Kelsey was finally discharged from University Hospital on Jan. 27 and was reunited with her family, including Lucy, who she had never met.
This story was originally published by staff at WTMJ.