On Mother’s Day, Montana Woman Is Grateful for Life-Saving Care She & Newborn Son Received at Intermountain Health St. Vincent Regional Hospital
A Mother’s Day approached, Alyssa Morin of Billings, Montana, reflected on an unexpected birth experience that underscored the power of compassionate, team-based care at Intermountain Health St. Vincent Regional Hospital.
It's the kind of care that she believes saved the lives of both her and her newborn son.
Morin arrived at Intermountain Health St. Vincent late at night expecting labor but soon found herself facing a medical emergency.
“I went into the ER for shortness of breath,” Morin said. “I started panicking, immediately thinking, ‘How am I supposed to deliver this baby if I can’t breathe?’”
Morin has a history of vocal cord paralysis following thyroid surgery, a condition that can make breathing unpredictable.
During her pregnancy, severe acid reflux worsened those symptoms, triggering dangerous vocal cord spasms.
“This had never happened before,” she said. “This was a pretty bad episode.”
After evaluation in the emergency department, she was admitted to the labor and delivery unit at Intermountain St. Vincent. Morin’s care team quickly recognized her complex condition. Obstetrics, respiratory therapy, the intensive care unit and neonatology specialists gathered to determine the safest course of action for both mother and baby.
As her breathing worsened, Morin said her care team walked through options with her and her husband.
She recalled multiple specialists consulting together at her bedside. “They were talking about what would be the best way to deliver the baby while keeping me safe and able to breathe,” Morin said.
Ultimately, Morin said she trusted the team’s collective judgment. “I was like, ‘Do whatever you need to do.’”
As Morin’s oxygen levels dropped, physicians determined the safest path forward was to sedate and intubate her.
While under sedation in the ICU, her labor was induced, and she delivered her son vaginally to allow for a safer recovery given her condition.
She woke up the following day in the ICU. “The first thing I asked, writing on paper because I realized I was intubated, was, ‘Did we have a boy?’” she said.
Despite the complexity of the delivery, Morin’s son, Ridge, was born healthy. “He came out bright pink, crying; everybody was very excited for that,” she said.
“The delivery was great; it went very well. And it was all driven by the team dynamic,” said Chris Tanner, ICU nurse, at Intermountain St. Vincent Regional Hospital. “The labor and delivery were wonderful. They jumped in. They had a great plan. They had backups to the what-ifs, and they were prepared for those and everyone had their parts.”
Morin credits not only the physicians overseeing her care but also the nurses who advocated for her and provided reassurance during frightening moments.
“They were very calm,” she said. “They really saw me as a mom first, and I was so appreciative of that.”
Morin said she is grateful to the teams across the hospital who came together to support her.
She also expressed gratitude for clinicians who made difficult but necessary decisions to protect her safety.
As a gesture of thanks, she and her family came to Intermountain St. Vincent and provided lunch to the hospital to her caregivers to recognize what they did for her and her family.