health

The scary symptom that a mom's labor was about to become a fight to survive: 'I think I'm about to die'

April 18, 2026 / 8:00 AM EDT / CBS News

The scary symptom that a mom's labor was about to become a fight to survive: 'I think I'm about to die'

TL;DR

  • Casey Gould, who longed to be a mother, experienced peripartum cardiomyopathy during childbirth after years of infertility and miscarriages.
  • During labor, Gould felt a sense of dread and saw shadows, moments before her son's heart rate dropped, leading to an emergency C-section.
  • Doctors discovered Gould's heart had failed, with an ejection fraction of only 13%, necessitating the use of an Impella pump to aid her heart's recovery.
  • Gould spent days in a coma in the ICU and underwent a nine-day hospital stay, eventually recovering with her heart function returning to normal.
  • Peripartum cardiomyopathy affects about 1 in 5,000 pregnancies and can present with warning signs like shortness of breath, though it is hard to predict.
  • While Gould has recovered, future pregnancies are deemed high-risk, but she cherishes her life as a mother and considers her recovery a miracle.