Perrie Wilkof Names Baby Sema Caroline After OSU Doctors Who Saved Her Life

In the middle of labor with her first child, Perrie Wilkof’s pulse stopped.

What had been a healthy pregnancy for the owner of beloved Dough Mama’s cafe in Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood became a life-or-death situation for herself and her unborn daughter.

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Surgeons, pediatricians, anesthesiologists and other professionals at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center had to act quickly to stabilize the rapidly deteriorating mother and the baby whose pulse was in danger of dropping from lack of oxygen. Every minute counted.

“You know, you wonder, ‘What if I’m one of those unlucky people?’ But everyone says, ‘No way, it’s so rare that it’s not going to be you,'” Wilkof said, holding his happy and very talkative daughter in his arms during a recent interview with The Dispatch.

Yes, Wilkof and her baby girl survived that day, something she and her partner Nick Guyton, co-owner of Gemüt Biergarten, credit to two OSU doctors in particular: Dr. Caroline Bank, the first physician to evaluate Wilkof and focus on stabilizing her, and Dr. Sema Hajmurad, the resident who led the emergency C-section.

Their gratitude to these two doctors is written in their daughter’s name: Sema Caroline.

With a rare complication, every minute counts

Nothing about Wilkof’s pregnancy suggested that she would almost die giving birth to her child.

She had a scheduled induction a few days after Sema’s official due date, which is typical for women considered “older birthing moms” like Wilkof at 36. Despite the induction, labor was slow and Wilkof was not dilating properly 24 hours after arriving at the hospital.

The midwife who attended Wilkof tried to insert a mechanism to help the process. Eventually the contractions started and Wilkof’s water broke, but the labor was still too slow. They inserted another mechanism to try to monitor the contractions, when suddenly Wilkof felt like throwing up.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. The last thing Wilkof remembers is the nurse telling her her baby’s heart rate was dropping before she lost consciousness.

That’s when the midwife stepped in, and Bank sprang into action. She ordered a C-section for Wilkof, and in the midst of preparations for the major operation, her patient’s pulse disappeared.

Bank began CPR and other life-saving measures while Hajmurad stepped in to begin the C-section, both doctors working simultaneously to save mother and baby. Within minutes, they were handing a newly emerged Sema off to pediatric experts to be transported to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and trying to stop the bleeding in Wilkof’s uterus, which was now hemorrhaging.

“There’s this split second of disbelief, like this is actually happening,” Banks recalls. “Then you have to go with what you can do, let the training take over, and focus all the anxiety and all the emotion on… there’s a patient in front of me who needs help.”

Based on Wilkof’s symptoms, doctors believe she suffered an amniotic fluid embolism, although the condition is difficult to detect. It is a rare and potentially fatal complication that can occur before, during or after the birth of a baby when amniotic fluid enters the mother’s bloodstream and triggers a sudden, severe allergic reaction. The mortality rate can be as high as 60 percent.

AFEs may be rare, affecting about one in 40,000 births in the United States, but traumatic or complicated births in the United States are not.

According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 45% of new mothers experience birth trauma, and the effects can last long after birth. Mothers in the United States also die at a higher rate than those in other high-income countries, according to CDC data.

Giving birth can be an incredible experience, and often the happiest day of someone’s life, Bank said, but any birth or pregnancy can be traumatic.

“Pregnancy is not benign, and what it looks like for an individual is an incredibly unique experience, but the trauma of birth is very real and very common,” Banks said. “There is no such thing as a low-risk pregnancy. I would say that any pregnancy can start out low-risk and become high-risk pretty quickly.”

On the right track and on the mend together

After successful surgery and careful observation, Wilkof survived, spending five days in the hospital before finally being able to meet her daughter for the first time, who was under observation at Nationwide Children’s.

“When they were finally able to be together, it was very powerful,” said Guyton, who went back and forth during those five days between her daughter, now almost 2 months old, and her partner.

Wilkof and Guyton decided not to name Sema until they met her, avoiding questions about paperwork and next steps until they were reunited as a family. But the names they had considered no longer seemed to fit their new family member.

“We were at home and we were talking together about our gratitude to these two women,” he said. “The whole team, but especially to these two women.”

Wilkof, who had an intense recovery, didn’t remember the names of the women who saved his life at the time, but when Guyton told him, they “just seemed fine.”

Bank cried when Wilkof and Guyton told her and Hajmurad, and Bank called it “the greatest honor” as a doctor.

“It was just an incredible confirmation that they got through this and they’re healing together,” she said.

Samantha Hendrickson is the medical affairs and health care reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. You can reach her at shendrickson@dispatch.com