Gandhi Hospital doctors help 45-year-old woman go from ventilator to normal breathing in a week

From being dependent on a ventilator to breathing normally on her own within a week, a 45-year-old woman has made a recovery at Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad, after being admitted in a critical condition with a pregnancy-related heart disorder.

The patient, Leelavathi Kiran Singh was admitted to the hospital on August 27 after she collapsed at a diagnostics centre. She was critical and had to be put on a ventilator.

She had a history of diabetes during pregnancy, high blood pressure and an underactive thyroid. Doctors found that she had peripartum cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes weak around the time of childbirth. She also had severe metabolic acidosis, a condition in which the blood becomes excessively acidic when the body is unable to maintain its normal chemical balance.