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Baby born to mother who had been brain-dead for four months Baby born to mother who had been brain-dead for four months
(about 17 hours later)
A healthy baby was born in Portugal on Tuesday to a mother who had been brain-dead for nearly four months. A baby has been born in Portugal almost four months after his mother was declared brain-dead.
“The baby boy, weighing 2.35kg (5lb 3oz), was born after 32 weeks without complications and by caesarean section,” announced the Lisbon hospital that carried out the procedure. The boy, who weighed 5lb 3oz (2.4kg), was delivered by caesarean section at Lisbon’s São José hospital at 32 weeks, after his mother, 37, suffered a brain haemorrhage on 20 February.
Related: Brain-dead pregnant woman’s life support can be switched off, Irish court rules The decision to continue with the pregnancy was made in consultation with the father.
The mother had been declared brain-dead on 20 February after having a brain haemorrhage, the hospital said. “The foetus appeared to be in good health,” the hospital said in a statement. “The decision was taken with the family to follow through with the pregnancy.”
“The foetus appeared to be in good health,” it added, so “the decision was taken with the family to follow through with the pregnancy.” Luis Graça, head of the Portuguese Society of Obstetricians, said the birth was “an extraordinary feat”.
The hospital said the successful birth represented Portugal’s longest-ever survival of a foetus whose mother was brain-dead. It is the longest a child has survived in the womb in Portugal after a mother has been declared brain-dead.
A similar case in Poland saw a baby boy born to a brain-dead mother in April. In January a baby boy was born in Wroclaw, Poland, after surviving for 55 days in the womb after his mother was declared brain-dead having had a tumour. The baby weighed 2.2lb (1kg). He was allowed home in April.
In 2001 a mother in Warsaw, Kentucky, who had been in a coma for eight months following a car crash, gave birth to a healthy daughter born full-term.
Last year in the UK, Colvina Jolin, 28, from Horndean, Hampshire, was in a coma for three months after suffering a brain haemorrhage, and came round to discover that her baby daughter Maia had been delivered by caesarian six weeks earlier.
And in the US a woman who had been in a coma for 10 years following a car accident was discovered to be pregnant after being raped in the nursing home where she was being cared for. She later gave birth to a boy.