Three Louisville moms beat the odds after life-threatening pregnancy complication

As their babies approach their first birthdays, three local women are raising awareness about a rare condition most expectant mothers have never heard of.

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When Shelby Walcott went in for a routine ultrasound at 18 weeks pregnant last year, she expected to hear everything was fine with her baby boy. Instead, she was introduced to a term that would change her life: placenta accreta spectrum.

"I have 20 nieces and nephews- lots and lots of babies and pregnancies around me," says the 34-year-old Louisville realtor and mother of four. "Never, ever have I heard of it."

She wasn't alone in her confusion. Amanda Burch, another Louisville mother carrying her sixth child, had never heard of placenta accreta either- until doctors at Cincinnati's Fetal Care Center spotted it on an MRI at 19 weeks. Morgan Darius received her diagnosis in September at UofL Hospital, where doctors carefully explained what lay ahead.

"The risk of death is high. It's 10 to 15% and that sounds like a low number to anyone who does statistics, but when I talk about the risk of death in general, in pregnancy, it's less than 1%. So that's, that's a huge increase," Dr. Tiffany Tonismae, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UofL Hospital, explained.

The three women were in the hospital at the same time in 2024, preparing for an unknown road ahead and leaning on each other. Now, as their babies celebrate their first birthdays, they're using Placenta Accreta Awareness Month to share their stories, their gratitude, and potentially save other mothers' lives.

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