People’s victory for Rosemary and Nickita

IN the coronary care unit of a Cork hospital, the miracle of birth and the miracle of life are tightly bound.

In a cot on Floor 5, by her 21-year-old mother’s side, sleeps newborn baby Nickita, blissfully unaware of the drama that surrounded her birth.

Rosemary O’Brien, who suffers from a serious heart defect, gave birth to her daughter against the odds, surprising nurses, doctors and even herself.

A month ago, Rosemary was transferred from Tralee General to Cork University Hospital with primary pulmonary hypertension. As a non-maternity hospital, it was an unusual setting for the delivery of a newborn baby, but then there was a lot about the birth that was unique.

Rosemary’s doctors were concerned that with her fragile health, the rigours of labour could prove too much. Their fears during the birth were unfounded. Rosemary rallied and baby Nickita was born.

Staff at the hospital, where Rosemary, according to consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Professor John Higgins, had become something of a cause célèbre, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Rosemary, from Tralee, Co Kerry, was in good hands from the start. Instead of just one consultant at the birth, there were four. Professor Higgins; cardiologist Dr Janice Kirwan; anaesthetist Dr Paddy Seigne, and down from Dublin’s Mater Hospital, specialising in Rosemary’s condition, Dr Seán Gaine.

“There was a whole host of people involved, from coronary care to midwifery. Rosemary’s care is ongoing, we still have a lot of concerns for her, even though she has got over a huge hurdle,” Prof Higgins said.

In a hospital not accustomed to having newborn babies wheeled through its corridors, Nickita is known by most of the staff. It takes Rosemary’s husband James almost an hour to wheel his baby from the paediatric ward to her mother’s side.

Rosemary has been through trying times and is not yet out of the woods, but for the moment, she is enjoying the thrill of motherhood for the second time.

“It’s sad I have to stay in hospital for Christmas, but I’m glad the way things have turned out. My family and my other little girl Kathlyn will be up to see me on Christmas Day and the staff are brilliant, more like friends than anything else.”

Nickita is a Greek name meaning people’s victory. And so far it has been for everyone concerned.