I virtually died after giving delivery when a flesh-eating bug developed in my C-section incision

A new mom has revealed she almost died after giving birth when she developed a flesh-eating bug in her C-section incision.

Amber DeWitt, 31, battled necrotizing fasciitis and was put into a coma after the arrival of her now one-year-old son, Weston, in September 2023.

The aggressive condition, which eats away at healthy tissue, can prove fatal and saw a ‘softball-sized’ chunk of Amber’s stomach removed.

The mom-of-one and business manager, from Dallas, had a ‘healthy, normal pregnancy’ and had planned to have a water birth, but she was rushed into an emergency C-section after her baby became stuck in the breach position.

Weston arrived at September 30, 2023, at 9.25am weighing 6lbs 11oz. 

They were discharged two days, but later that week Amber grew concerned when her incision continued hurting.

It became increasingly painful, with her eventually developing a high temperature.

She said: ‘I couldn’t go to the toilet, so they knew my organs were shutting down.’ 

When she visited at a local clinic, she said doctors told her it was a mild bacterial infection and sent her home with antibiotics. 

She said: ‘They suggested I put a sanitary towel over the wound to help with the moisture.

‘In hindsight, I feel like that might have made bacteria breed more.’

When the pain became unbearable, Amber returned to Dallas’s Baylor Scott and White Hospital, where doctors discovered the terrifying truth.

They rushed her in for emergency exploratory surgery, where they discovered she had developed sepsis and necrotizing fasciitis.

They suspected the infection had developed in the wound of her C-section incision.

Amber was put in an induced coma for three days, and had two more operations while asleep.

‘My surgeon warned me it was a huge operation and that’s when I realized how serious it was. There was so much tissue dying and turning black, they had to keep cutting away,’ she said.

‘They had to stop it spreading before it hit my vital organs. I don’t remember anything during this time.’

She underwent emergency surgery to remove the dying tissue, leaving her with a three-inch deep and about two-inch open wound.

The mom added: ‘During the second operation, doctors told my family I wasn’t going to survive.’ 

Doctors warned her 32-year-old husband, Andrew, that she was ‘unlikely to survive’ but she defied the odds, waking up three days later.

Amber said: ‘Doctors didn’t think I’d make it through the night. I had a newborn baby and my husband was saying his goodbyes. 

‘They had to cut away pounds of skin – it was the same amount as a softball. I’m so grateful to be here, and to be able to watch my son grow-up.’

She spent six days in intensive care and another eight days on a ward before she was finally discharged.

Amber had a nurse visit her several times a week for the next six months to continue changing her dressings.

She said: ‘It was a very difficult time, I was a new mom and couldn’t even hold my baby.

‘They cut so much skin away, that it created a second wound because the skin was too tight to heal. I was lucky to have such amazing support around me.’

After five surgeries and two weeks later, Amber returned home and was on the road to recovery. 

She has since fully recovered but been left with a large scar down her abdomen after the traumatic incident.

She said: ‘I didn’t have health insurance, and the cost of treatment put me off seeking medical help sooner.

‘I kept thinking it would get better and it didn’t. I ended up getting Medicaid – which covered the hospital bills and backdated to the C-section.

‘I worked out I racked up nearly a million dollars worth of treatment. But your health is not worth worrying about getting a hospital bill – I put off going and it nearly cost my life.

‘I nearly died and would never have been here for my son. In that sense, I’m lucky to be here.’

Now, she is finally healed and is on a mission to urge people to ‘listen’ to their bodies if something doesn’t seem right.