For most Americans, the H1N1 virus is something we know about only intellectually, through media reports and government assessments. But for two pregnant women and their unborn children in California, that strain of the flu nearly ended in their deaths, despite the best efforts of the medical staff at San Antonio Community Hospital — until a machine meant to save newborn babies saved unborn children and their mothers, as well.
The husband of one of those women said the “miracle” machine came into play:
But as the women's health got worse and the lives of their unborn babies became more at risk, doctors and staff at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland suggested using a machine that is usually used on newborns and had only been tried on fewer than 100 adults before them.
The machine acted like a heart/lung bypass machine for the mothers and their babies. IVs took the moms' blood into the machine, added oxygen to then returned it to their bodies.
According to Andy Hinds — whose wife, Ashley, was on death's door — the experimental use of the machine immediately gave him optimism for their family's future:
“Once they put her on the machine, immediately she just, she started…her color started coming back,” Ashley Hinds' husband Andy said. “She started returning to normal, and things were looking good. That was the beginning of, I think, the hope.”
That hope lasted weeks as the women's bodies slowly fought and defeated the deadly H1N1 bug.
As they healed, their bodies and the now-healthy blood kept their babies alive.
In the months since both mothers were healed from their terrible illnesses, they and their babies have led happy, healthy lives. Both families recently celebrated their new leases on life with the medical staff that worked so hard to keep them going.
The machine that was intended to save newborn babies saved the lives of unborn babies and their mothers.
Here at LifeSiteNews, we often report on people who prevent life, take life, or interfere with its full capacity. This story, however, is one that highlights two families and an entire medical staff that recognized the full value of life — and did everything possible to make that intellectual understanding fully realized, no matter what it took.