Doctors at a Fort Worth hospital performed an emergency cesarean section to deliver a premature baby from a woman critically ill with a suspected case of coronavirus, according to two sources with knowledge of the procedure.
The mother, who is attached to a ventilator and is in critical condition, is a federal prison inmate, they said.
The C-section was done Wednesday at John Peter Smith Hospital, the sources said.
The mother is in an isolated area of the hospital for COVID-19 patients, they said.
The 30-year-old woman was recently transferred from a county jail in Oklahoma to Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, the only federal prison hospital for women in the country.
On Saturday, she was transported to JPS with high fever and signs of coronavirus, but returned to the prison, the sources said.
By Tuesday afternoon, her conditions worsened and she was diagnosed with pneumonia, and she returned to the hospital by ambulance, a third person confirmed.
A source who works in the medical community confirmed Friday the baby was doing well, but the mother remains in critical condition.
None of the sources wanted to be identified because they were not authorized to publicly disclose the information.
The prison is locked down and 31 inmates are quarantined and under observation, one official said.
The woman has been tested for coronavirus, but the results haven’t yet been received, the sources said.
