Utah woman dies just nine days after giving birth to twins

A Utah woman died of a rare heart condition called peripartum cardiomyopathy just nine days after she gave birth to twins, her grieving father said.

A Utah woman has died of a rare heart condition, just nine days after she gave birth to twins.

Morgan Hughes, 23, of Benjamin, always wanted to become a mother and was overjoyed when she delivered a boy and a girl Dec. 19, her family said. Hughes recovered well after childbirth and was discharged from the hospital days later. The twins, who were about six weeks premature, were sent to the neonatal intensive care unit to get stronger, said Hughes’ father, Brian Hodson.

Hughes and her husband, Sam Hughes, also 23, named the twins Hudson and Georgia and visited them in the NICU, eager to bring them home.

But around a week after she gave birth, Hughes started feeling off. Hodson said she vomited and fainted, and thought she may have had a seizure. She returned to the hospital, where Hodson said doctors discovered fluid around her heart. They diagnosed her with postpartum cardiomyopathy, also called peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart failure that happens when the heart muscle weakens toward the end of pregnancy or up to about five months following delivery.

In some cases, peripartum cardiomyopathy can be managed with medication to improve cardiac function and combat fluid retention if diagnosed early enough. But the condition can be difficult to detect because symptoms of cardiac failure — such as shortness of breath and swelling in the feet and legs — can mimic pregnancy symptoms, according to the American Heart Association. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/utah-woman-dies-after-giving-birth-twins-rcna186099

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