"New Mom Fought Heart Failure For Her Son: 'I'm Going To Be Here For Him'" - Meghan Holohan
Five days after giving birth, Melissa Dimmick felt worn out. She knew having a baby was exhausting, but this seemed like something different. In the ER, doctors diagnosed her with a rare type of heart failure called postpartum cardiomyopathy, which occurs during the last month of pregnancy or up to five months after delivering a baby. “The doctor said, ‘No more babies ever. You're all done. You have to see our heart failure team,” said Dimmick. That’s when she met Maya Barghash, MD, assistant professor of medicine and cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The cardiologist implanted a wireless heart monitor in Dimmick to detect if she went into heart failure and a defibrillator to shock her heart if she started having “electrical complications." According to Dr. Barghash, “It is kind of like a seatbelt. If you were in a car you hope you’ll never need it.”
— Maya Barghash, MD, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Cardiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai