Woman Awakens From Coma to See Newborn Daughter

By Dave Andrusko

Shannon Kranzberg became the latest woman to successfully deliver a baby while in a coma. The 18-year-old Mrs. Kranzberg delivered her daughter Alexis on January 14, then snapped out of her coma a week later.

"I just woke up and the baby was there," she told the Dallas Morning News. The delivery, two months' premature, evidently was triggered by a staph infection.

According to the Morning News, the "miracle" didn't end with the natural delivery of Alexis after Mrs. Kranzberg had been in a coma following a November 16 car crash. Mrs. Kranzberg was scheduled to go home from the Baylor Institute for Rehabilitation March 16.

"I think that her prognosis is very good, given the severity of her injury," Dr. Mary Carlisle, Mrs. Kranzberg's doctor and the medical director of traumatic brain injury at the institute, told the Morning News. "It would be impossible to tell what the final outcome would be, but even recently she's continued to show remarkable progress."

Michael Kranzberg said of his wife, "She's my hero," adding, "She's just awesome."

For his part, when Alexis was born, Mr. Kranzberg fainted. Alexis, who now tips the scales at over eight pounds, weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces when she was born premature at Methodist Medical Center.

Dr. Carlisle said she had already seen another similar case this year.

"It is unusual," Dr. Carlisle told the Morning News. "We've had a number of girls who've had traumatic brain injuries and who were pregnant and had been in a coma. But they had all come out of the coma by the time it was time for them to have their babies."

By contrast, Mrs. Kranzberg's neurologist when she was at Methodist said he had never been involved in such a case. "This is the first one that I've seen," said Dr. Gregg Shalin. "But at that stage of the pregnancy, they just felt it would be best if they could let the baby go full term if they could."

He added, "A lot of the mechanisms involved in delivery are somewhat automatic."

Alexis's birth had special significance in that Mrs. Kranzberg had miscarried twice. Mr. Kranzberg said he hopes others would be inspired.

"I just want to say to people who are in our position that you've just got to keep the faith," he told the Morning News. "You can't get beat down."

NOT THE FIRST

Though unusual, women who have lapsed into comas have successfully carried babies, sometimes for extended periods. In 1999, a pregnant Maria Lopez, who had spent nearly a month in a coma, "stunned doctors when she awakened unexpectedly three days after a priest gave her last rites," according to Reuters.

Lopez had slipped into a coma April 24, after complaining of headaches and nausea. Although doctors initially thought her symptoms were a result of the pregnancy, they discovered she had been born with a condition called arteriovenous malformation, in which the blood vessels in the brain are tangled or malformed, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Doctors at the University of California Medical Center (UC) injected a glue-like substance into Lopez's brain to cut the blood flow to the tangled vessels, a procedure called embolization. However, Lopez remained in a coma, showing no signs of improvement for three weeks.

Doctors had advised her family to withdraw life support. But just as a priest was about to give Maria Lopez last rites, she coughed.

Doctors dismissed her cough and slight body movement as a reflex, but "family members were convinced that she was preparing to emerge from the coma and asked that she be kept on life support," according to Reuters.

"Several days later, John Frazee [a vascular neurosurgeon at the UC Medical Center] said Lopez stunned him by waking from her coma and responding to his commands. She slipped back into a coma several days later, then awoke again, apparently for good, and gave birth to healthy twins."

Doctors could offer no medical explanation for her recovery.

"Whether that initial cough was a sign from God I don't know, but it certainly saved her life, because it convinced her family to leave her on life-support," Frazee told Reuters.

Her sister had a different take.

"She just opened her eyes that day and said, 'No,' like she wasn't ready to die. She just wanted us to give her more time," Lopez's sister Sylvia Hernandez told reporters.

Gradually Lopez emerged from her coma and six days later her twins were born. Lopez said that it was the babies and her other three daughters who brought her back from death's door.

"There are several studies in the medical literature that support the idea that a nurturing and involved family is a factor in the recovery process from an event," Dr. Scott Strum told CBS Channel 2 in late 1999.

How spunky, how determined was Ms. Lopez? CBS Channel 2 reported she "will still have to undergo outpatient treatment to regain her speech and ability to walk. But she told reporters she wants to beat the odds and is determined to dance."