A young New York mother is fighting for her life against placenta cancer just after giving birth to her twin daughters.
On March 3, the 26-year old mother, Jenna Hinman, began to go into labor and was rushed to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Watertown, New York. Jenna was struggling to breath due to which doctors feared the safety of the unborn babies. The doctors at the hospital took a decision to deliver the babies, Kinleigh and Azlynn, by emergency C-section. Kinleigh and Azlynn are nine weeks early and weigh two pounds, nine ounces and three pounds, six ounces respectively.
The twins were transported to Crouse Hospital in Syracuse on the same day. Soon after giving birth Hinman started coughing blood. Jenna was also rushed to the Crouse Hospital. Doctors initially suspected that Jenna had contracted pneumonia. However, doctors later found that Jenna was suffering from stage 3 choriocarcinoma.
The rare form of cancer, choriocarcinoma, is a malignant form of gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) that causes abnormal growth of cells in the uterus of a woman. According to the American Cancer Society, this particular type of cancer affects just around two to seven of every 100,000 pregnancies in the U.S.
Choriocarcinoma grows very quickly and spreads to other organs apart from the uterus. Reports suggest that around 25 percent of the women who develop this disease miscarry. Dr. David Landsberg, chief of Medicine for Crouse Hospital, says that the cancer has spread to Jenna's lungs but had not reached the brain. He added that the cancer is a curable tumor.
Jenna is on medically induced coma since March 6 and is on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which is a therapy that involves using a pump that circulates blood through an artificial lung into the bloodstream. Dr. Landsberg says that without ECMO Jenna's treatment will be "100 percent fatal." He says that ECMO is keeping Jenna alive and is letting chemo to cure her.
"We're hanging in there," said U.S. Army Sgt. Brandon Hinman, Jenna's husband, to ABCNews. "We are just taking it day to day, but we are starting to get some positive results and are pretty happy about that. The chemo is starting to have an effect."
Hinman added that the twins were doing well, feeding okay and were able to breathe without breathing tubes.
