Mom gives birth to 'miracle baby' after life-threatening pregnancy complication TODAY 12/15/2020 The news hit Margarita Saavedra so hard that she fainted in her doctor’s office. Eighteen weeks into her pregnancy, an ultrasound found the fetus could not survive because of a deadly birth defect. The same imaging test also discovered she had developed placenta accreta, a serious complication that usually leads to a hysterectomy to prevent life-threatening bleeding. If doctors proceeded, she could have no more babies. “It was so traumatic for me,” Saavedra, 40, who lives in Houston, Texas, told TODAY. “It was just shock.” Five years later, she still grieves for the baby she lost then. But she rejoices at the birth of Federico, the son she delivered after choosing conservative management — a newer, rarer option to treat placenta accreta that kept her uterus in place.