ROME - A 38-year-old woman who was declared brain-dead, but was kept alive by machines for more than two months died after giving birth to a premature baby girl. Doctors at Milan's Niguard hospital said that they shut down the machinery a few hours after the birth on Saturday.
They added that the baby girl, born two months prematurely was breathing on her own Sunday. The girl was named Cristina after her mother, who was brought to the hospital in March after suffering the rupture of a cerebral aneurysm. The doctors told reporters that the woman was soon declared brain dead and spent the next 78 days in that state so as to allow for the birth of her baby.
Doctors said that the second name of the woman was not released for privacy reasons as requested by the family. They added that they decided to deliver the girl after the mother's blood pressure took a dive and the fetus experienced heart rhythm problems.
The family decided to donate the mother's kidneys, corneas and liver, the hospital said.
Last year, a Virginia cancer patient was kept alive to deliver her baby. The girl named Susan Anne Catherine Torres was also delivered after her mother's blood pressure plunged. The mother had been brain dead after she suffered a stroke on account of the melanoma spreading to her brain. But the girl, born three months prematurely at the neonatal intensive care unit of Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, died after five weeks due to heart failure.
