A 25-year-old mother from Detroit died after giving birth earlier this month, despite being healthy and appearing fine after delivering her infant. Alona White and her husband went in for a scheduled C-section for their second daughter this month. According to the woman’s mother, she was “fine” after giving birth, according to People.
Now Alona White’s family is left mourning her loss and looking for an explanation for the cause of her death. She is survived by her husband, Derek Sullivan, and their two daughters, Aleah, 2, and Ari, a newborn.
The mother seemed fine after giving birth.
“She was 25, perfectly healthy, and I just don’t know what went wrong,” said Alona White’s mother, Katina Ponder, according to Fox 2 Detroit. Ponder explained that the couple brought over their 2 -year-old on March 7 to go to their scheduled C-section at Ascension St. John Hospital. “She was excited. We went from being joyful to devastated,” Ponder said, according to People.
White reportedly complained about having a headache after delivering her daughter. Sadly, when the nurse arrived, she was found to be unresponsive, People reported. “She went down for a CT scan and that’s when they saw like a really large massive bleeding on the left side of her brain,” Ponder said.
What happened next was unexpected.
After the bleeding in her brain was detected by the CT scan, White had an emergency craniotomy. Sadly, she died after spending five days in the ICU and did not have very much time with her newborn daughter.
“She only really got like an hour to spend with her — it’s just so — it’s so unfair that she was robbed of life like that — I just don’t understand what happened,” Ponder said, according to Fox 2 Detroit.
Black women in the US are three times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy and postpartum. Sadly, White is now among the many moms adding to the staggering Black maternal mortality rate, and her family wants to know why.
Her family is devastated and looking for an explanation.
White’s family has understandably been rocked by her unexplainable death. The loss has been heartbreaking for her 2-year-old daughter as well, who doesn’t understand why she hasn’t seen her mother.
“Aleah and her had a bond like — out of this world — and she’s been asking for her mommy,” Ponder said, according to People. The family is waiting for the autopsy results to come back to explain the cause of White’s death, Fox 2 Detroit reported.
The fundraising account has been organized by Lederrick Sullivan to help Ponder and the family with funeral costs and other expenses. Thus far, more than $14,000 has been raised to help support the family.
Though the family is thankful for the financial support, Ponder said, “It’s no amount of money that will bring her back and for these babies to live without their mother — no amount of money,” according to People.
