“Everyone turned away from us that day.”

“It could have been prevented,” Hope Ngumezi said after his wife Porsha died of a miscarriage

Porsha Ngumezi was 11 weeks pregnant when she miscarried and experienced heavy bleeding that lasted six hours
A 35-year-old Texas woman required a D&C test, but doctors avoided the medical procedure, which is also used in abortions, due to a state ban
She died a few hours later in hospital, leaving behind her husband and two children

A Texas woman died after not receiving proper medical care for a miscarriage due to the state’s strict abortion ban – the fifth case in this story ProPublica reported where death occurred as a direct result overthrow Roe v. Wade.

On June 11, 2023, Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two, suffered a miscarriage at 11 weeks of pregnancy and experienced heavy bleeding. Nurses reported that she was “producing large clots the size of a grapefruit.”

According to the facility, she was bleeding so much within six hours that she required two blood transfusions in the emergency room at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.

Porsha’s husband, Hope Ngumezi, called his mother, a former doctor, and she told the couple that Porsha needed help dilatation and curettage treatment (D&C).

Dilation and curettage is a surgical procedure that involves dilating the cervix and using a tool called a curette to suction or scrape the lining of the uterus to remove the baby from inside the uterus. D&C is performed in the first trimester of pregnancy in cases of miscarriages and abortions.

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Despite their mother’s advice, Hope and Porsha were told by the doctor that it was the hospital’s “routine” to provide reassurance a medicine called misoprostol to help her body complete the miscarriage.

“The attitude that day was, ‘These are the experts, right?’ I know they’ve seen miscarriages many times, so they’re well equipped to know what to do,” Hope said KVUE.

However, Porsha died three hours later.

“It could have been prevented,” Hope added. “I felt like everyone turned their back on us that day.”

ProPublica reported that several dozen doctors examined Porsha’s case and agreed that her case was preventable. Experts say misoprostol is too risky to use in a mother who is experiencing such heavy bleeding and a D&C should be performed.

“Misoprostol is not going to work fast enough after 11 weeks,” Dr. Amber Truehart, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health, told the outlet. “The patient will continue to bleed and will be at greater risk of hemorrhagic shock.”

The medical examiner examining the case determined that Porsha’s cause of death was hemorrhage.

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Almost total ban abortion in texas states that doctors cannot perform the procedure unless the mother’s life is deemed to be in danger. Doctors who break this law can face up to 99 years in prison, which has led many doctors to avoid D&C even in cases of miscarriage for fear of retribution.

“Stigma and fear surround D&C physicians in the same way that they do not surround misoprostol,” said Dr. Alison Goulding, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Houston, according to ProPublica. “Doctors assume that D&C is no longer standard in Texas, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid: they see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal.”

Dr. Gabrielle Taper, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Austin, added that after state abortion went into effect, “there was a lot more uncertainty about: when we can intervene, whether we have enough evidence to say it’s a miscarriage, how long a miscarriage lasts.” “. We will wait, what will we use to feel ultimate?”

Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital declined to comment on Porsha’s treatment and noted that “each patient’s care is individualized and individualized.”

“All Houston Methodist hospitals comply with all state laws, including Texas abortion law,” a hospital spokesman told the facility.

Hope said he feels a lot of anger knowing that the legislation has impacted his wife’s care. Now his children have no mother.

“The children were little at the time, 3 and 5 years old,” he told KVUE. “They have barely started life. And now they have to go through life without their mother.”