Pregnant women urged to learn about vasa previa

Summary

When Miriam Gerritsen went into labor with her first baby, she had no idea that anything was wrong. Her pregnancy had been completely normal, and labor had come just at the right time.

However, after her doctor administered medication to help her dilate, the baby's heart rate started going crazy. The doctor took Gerritsen off the medicine and put an internal heart rate monitor on the baby's head, but her heart rate still dropped in half.

Gerritsen was taken in for an emergency caesarean section. Baby Elle was out in only seven minutes but without a heart rate. The doctors worked to revive her, but it still took them 20 minutes to do so. By this time many of her organs had been severely damaged from her lack of oxygen, and she died only a few days later.

Instead of simply mourning the loss of their daughter, Miriam and Bryce Gerritsen decided to take action. They began investigating vasa previa, the condition that had caused their daughter's death, and discovered that the little known but easily-treated disease affects about 2,500 births in the United States alone.

They established the Vasa Previa Foundation of Utah to help raise awareness of the condition. On Sept. 17, they held their second annual Elle's Walk for Vasa Previa to help raise money for research on the condition. Funds will be used to support vasa previa research, increase awareness of the condition among the public and the medical community and to purchase and place medical equipment necessary for detecting vasa previa. Last year they raised $10,000 and hoped to get even more this year.

"The main thing we want to do is to get any person who's pregnant to visit our Web site to make sure their doctor's checking for it, because they're not necessarily going to. Women need to specifically ask for their doctor to check their placenta and be very, very specific," Miriam Gerritsen said. "We want to help make women empowered to make sure their baby is safe."

Gerritsen said the condition can easily be detected in a standard color Doppler scan that is normally performed at 20 weeks to determine the sex of the baby. If doctors check to see where the placenta is located and notice it's lower in the uterus, they would need to check to see where the cord is inserted. If it connects to the placenta, the woman is all right, but if it inserts itself in the side of the uterus, this would indicate vasa previa and a weak connection. The blood vessels are in danger of rupturing during labor, which would cause the baby to bleed to death.

The foundation's Web site — www.vpfu.org — offers women a list of specific questions to ask their doctor to check for the condition. Miriam Gerritsen hopes that if enough women start asking their doctors to check for it, that it will become standard practice to watch for it. Above all she hopes to help others avoid experiencing the same thing she did.

"Losing a child is the hardest thing I can imagine. If I can help one other family not have to go through that, it's worth it," she said. "The Internet is great because it can reach people all over the world."

E-mail: twalquist@desnews.com