BRNO: When a helicopter rushed an unconscious Czech woman who had suffered a severe stroke to hospital in April, her chances of survival were slim — and those of the foetus she had carried in her womb for 15 weeks little better.
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And yet, on August 15, against all odds, a healthy baby girl was born by caesarean section — weighing 2.13kg and measuring 42cm — to her brain-dead mother, setting a new record in the process, Brno’s University Hospital said on Monday.
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It said the 117 days that she had been kept alive in the womb — a process fraught with potential complications — were believed to be a record for the longest artificially sustained pregnancy in a brain-dead mother.
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The mother, whose identity was not revealed, had been declared brain-dead shortly after reaching the hospital, upon which doctors immediately began the struggle to save her child.
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They put the 27-year-old woman on artificial life support to keep the pregnancy going, and even regularly moved her legs to simulate walking to help the child’s growth.
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After the delivery in the 34th week of gestation, with the husband and other family members present, medical staff disconnected the mother’s life support systems and allowed her to die.
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“This has really been an extraordinary case when the whole family stood together … without their support and their interest it would never have finished this way,” Pavel Ventruba, head of gynaecology and obstetrics at the hospital, told reporters.
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The Morning and Evening Brief###
The Morning and Evening Brief