When Giovanna Andrews recalls her traumatic labor, one of the worst things is remembering how her calls for help were ignored by medical staff at the hospital in the eastern U.S. state of Delaware.
Her daughter's heart briefly stopped beating during labor, prompting staff to pump Andrews' abdomen to get it going again — a procedure that dislodged her epidural catheter and eventually left her in "unbearable" pain, she said.
"That experience opened my eyes to other things that moms may not be being heard about," said Andrews, 27, who has since founded Harper's Heart, a nonprofit named after her daughter, Isabella Harper.