An obstetrician last week delivered the baby of a woman with COVID-19, reportedly the first procedure of its kind in Taiwan, saying that while the surgery was a success, it was also a “war-like struggle.”
On Wednesday last week, the 31-year-old woman underwent a caesarean section, giving birth to a healthy girl, said Wang Le-ming (王樂明), the woman’s attending physician at Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital.
The woman, who was 37 weeks pregnant, was confirmed as having contracted COVID-19 on Monday last week, after her mother and husband were infected, Wang said.
The team decided to conduct a caesarean section as the child had reached full-term, Wang said, adding that the procedure was the best way to minimize the risk of vertical transmission.
A big challenge was deciding how to best reduce the mother’s pain during childbirth while protecting the surgical team, he said.
Without anesthesia, she might scream, spreading droplets in the air, but general anesthesia was risky because intubation could lead to the virus being spread, Wang said.
The woman was given local anesthesia and remained conscious throughout the surgery, which took less than an hour, he said.
The team had to wear thick personal protective equipment (PPE) in an operating room with no air-conditioning, due to concerns over virus transmission, Wang said.
The woman was more anxious when she did not recognize the staff in their PPE, Wang said.
“Don’t be afraid,” Wang told the mother. “We will protect you and your child.”
“I explained the surgery to her before getting started — and looking at her mask, I thought: ‘I’m only 20cm to 30cm away from COVID-19,’” he said.
The priority for the surgery, other than keeping the mother and child safe, was to be quick, because there was a risk that the child could be infected by being exposed to the air, Wang said, adding that the team was under extreme pressure.
“My vision was blocked so much due to the sweat and heat in my goggles that I could barely staunch the bleeding,” Wang said.
The surgery went smoothly and the baby tested negative for COVID-19, the hospital said.
“I took off my PPEs one by one and then took a shower, finishing this war-like struggle,” Wang said.
Although the mother is isolated from her child, she videochats daily with those taking care of the baby so that she can see her child online.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
RSS