• In the Loop: Born 7 weeks early and during the polar vortex

teleneonatology session at the Mayo Clinic Simulation CenterNevaeh Loth was ready to enter the world seven weeks before she was due, and on a winter day when travel was nearly impossible. But with technology, a neonatologist 40 miles away could remotely assist with the birth. 


Newborn Nevaeh Loth's timing perhaps couldn't have been worse. But seven weeks from her due date, she was ready to enter the outside world. There was just one problem. The world outside of her parents' Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, home on that January day was wrapped in a polar vortex so cold that medical transport units — ground and air — were advised to stay put.

Nevaeh's mother, Dayoni Hash, didn't have that luxury when her water broke. Left with no other choice, as the Austin Daily Herald reports, Dayoni and her boyfriend, Roger Loth, got into their car and prayed they'd make it to Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin safely and in time. "The vehicle almost didn't start," Dayoni tells the paper. "There wouldn't have been ambulances that could've come to get us because of the weather. It would've been way worse."

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This story originally appeared on the In the Loop blog.