A photo Sharjah mother and father thought they'd never see

Nusrath calls her baby son her 'miracle' when surgeons performed a life-saving operation after she collapsed with a brain haemorrhage.

Nusrath Begum lovingly holds her four-month-old son Abu Saeed. Surgeons made this moment possible when they performed an emergency operation after a blood vessel ruptured in her brain causing a haemorrhage when she was five-months pregnant. Jeffrey E Biteng / The NationalShow less

SHARJAH // Like babies all over the UAE, wide-eyed Abu Saeed smiles brightly in his mother’s loving arms.

But this is a touching family scene Nusrath Begham and her husband Rashad Ahmad could only have dreamt about eight months ago.

When she was  five months pregnant her frantic husband found her unconscious on the kitchen floor.

She was rushed to Al Qassimi Hospital where doctors at the emergency department were quick to diagnose a brain haemorrhage.

It was a condition that posed a dire threat to the lives of the Indian woman and her unborn son.

Dr Sathish Krishna, a neurosurgeon consultant at the hospital, said that she “had an arteriovenous malformation between arteries and veins and the case was serious as the blood vessel had ruptured and was causing a haemorrhage in the brain, and more seriously it was happening to a pregnant woman”.

Doctors said they needed to act immediately, but as the procedure was potentially dangerous they asked her husband for consent.

“I immediately contacted her parents back in India and they gave me the go ahead. It was the start of a life changing operation that saved my wife and our unborn baby,” said Mr Ahmad.

The surgery to remove the blood clots from Ms Begham’s brain was a success and after a week in intensive care unit her condition began to improve and she slowly started to regain her speech.

She stayed under supervision until after the birth of her son four months later by Caesarean section. Ms Begham still finds it difficult to speak but, despite this, has made a remarkable recovery.

She described her son, now four  months old, as a miracle and she was grateful to the medical team who saved both their lives.

"The mortality rate of cases with arteriovenous malformations are high," said Dr Safia Seif Al Khaja, the medical director at Al Qassimi Hospital. "Most patients could be handicapped or bedridden for the rest of their lives. The hospital is very proud to see this case being successful and the wife giving birth and getting back to her feet."

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