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Wrapping his wife in a blanket as she mourned the loss of her pregnancy at 11 weeks, Hope Ngumezi wondered why no obstetrician was coming to see her.
Over the course of six hours on June 11, 2023, Porsha Ngumezi had bled so much in the emergency department at Houston Methodist Sugar Land that she’d needed two transfusions. She was anxious to get home to her young sons, but, according to a nurse’s notes, she was still “passing large clots the size of grapefruit.”
Hope dialed his mother, a former physician, who was unequivocal. “You need a D&C,” she told them, referring to dilation and curettage, a common procedure for first-trimester miscarriages and abortions. If a doctor could remove the remaining tissue from her uterus, the bleeding would end.
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But when Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis, the obstetrician on duty, finally arrived, he said it was the hospital’s “routine” to give a drug called misoprostol to help the body pass the tissue, Hope recalled. Hope trusted the doctor. Porsha took the pills, according to records, and the bleeding continued.
Three hours later, her heart stopped.
The 35-year-old’s death was preventable, according to more than a dozen doctors who reviewed a detailed summary of her case for ProPublica. Some said it raises serious questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to diverge from the standard of care and reach for less-effective options that could expose their patients to more risks. Doctors and patients described similar decisions they’ve witnessed across the state.
It was clear Porsha needed an emergency D&C, the medical experts said. She was hemorrhaging and the doctors knew she had a blood-clotting disorder, which put her at greater danger of excessive and prolonged bleeding. “Misoprostol at 11 weeks is not going to work fast enough,” said Dr. Amber Truehart, an OB-GYN at the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health. “The patient will continue to bleed and have a higher risk of going into hemorrhagic shock.” The medical examiner found the cause of death to be hemorrhage.
D&Cs — a staple of maternal health care — can be lifesaving. Doctors insert a straw-like tube into the uterus and gently suction out any remaining pregnancy tissue. Once the uterus is emptied, it can close, usually stopping the bleeding.
But because D&Cs are also used to end pregnancies, the procedure has become tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortions. In Texas, any doctor who violates the strict law risks up to 99 years in prison. Porsha’s is the fifth case ProPublica has reported in which women died after they did not receive a D&C or its second-trimester equivalent, a dilation and evacuation; three of those deaths were in Texas.
Texas doctors told ProPublica the law has changed the way their colleagues see the procedure; some no longer consider it a first-line treatment, fearing legal repercussions or dissuaded by the extra legwork required to document the miscarriage and get hospital approval to carry out a D&C. This has occurred, ProPublica found, even in cases like Porsha’s where there isn’t a fetal heartbeat or the circumstances should fall under an exception in the law. Some doctors are transferring those patients to other hospitals, which delays their care, or they’re defaulting to treatments that aren’t the medical standard.
Misoprostol, the medicine given to Porsha, is an effective method to complete low-risk miscarriages but is not recommended when a patient is unstable. The drug is also part of a two-pill regimen for abortions, yet administering it may draw less scrutiny than a D&C because it requires a smaller medical team and because the drug is commonly used to induce labor and treat postpartum hemorrhage. Since 2022, some Texas women who were bleeding heavily while miscarrying have gone public about only receiving medication when they asked for D&Cs. One later passed out in a pool of her own blood.
“Stigma and fear are there for D&Cs in a way that they are not for misoprostol,” said Dr. Alison Goulding, an OB-GYN in Houston. “Doctors assume that a D&C is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid: They see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal.”
Hope visits his wife’s gravesite in Pearland, Texas. (Photo by Danielle Villasana/ProPublica)Doctors and nurses involved in Porsha’s care did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Several physicians who reviewed the summary of her case pointed out that Davis’ post-mortem notes did not reflect nurses’ documented concerns about Porsha’s “heavy bleeding.” After Porsha died, Davis wrote instead that the nurses and other providers described the bleeding as “minimal,” though no nurses wrote this in the records. ProPublica tried to ask Davis about this discrepancy. He did not respond to emails, texts or calls.
Houston Methodist officials declined to answer a detailed list of questions about Porsha’s treatment. They did not comment when asked whether Davis’ approach was the hospital’s “routine.” A spokesperson said that “each patient’s care is unique to that individual.”
“All Houston Methodist hospitals follow all state laws,” the spokesperson added, “including the abortion law in place in Texas.”
Hope and his two sons outside their home in Houston (Photo by Danielle Villasana/ProPublica)Hope marveled at the energy Porsha had for their two sons, ages 5 and 3. Whenever she wasn’t working, she was chasing them through........