Brain dead pregnant woman in coma for three months. The Hospital kept her alive with oxygen equipments to enable the pregnancy reach 32 weeks. In coma, she delivers the baby and there was no other option than to switch off the oxygen and let her finally go to eternal rest.
BBC reports her sweet and sad story…
A funeral is being held for a 26-year-old woman who gave birth to a baby boy on Thursday despite being brain dead since December.
International sportswoman Catarina Sequeira was declared brain dead after an acute asthma attack at her home.
The baby, named Salvador, was born when she was almost 32 weeks pregnant and is being cared for in a neonatal hospital.
This is the second such case in Portugal of a baby born to a mother who was brain dead.
She suffered an asthma attack when she was 19 weeks pregnant and was put in an induced coma.
However, her condition deteriorated and within days she was declared brain dead on 26 December, reports say.
For 56 days a ventilator was attached to her to enable her baby to survive in her womb.
Doctors said the intention had been to wait until Friday for the mother to reach 32 weeks’ gestation, but her respiratory condition had deteriorated and the Caesarean section was brought forward to Thursday.
Thirty-two weeks was considered the period at which babies had a very high probability of survival, hospital officials said.
The baby’s father wanted the child to be born, as did the rest of the family.
Sequeira’s mother, Maria de Fátima Branco, told Portuguese
TV that she had said goodbye to her daughter on 26 December and the decision to keep the baby had been made because the father, Bruno, had always wanted to be a father.
The baby was born weighing 1.7kg (3.75 lbs) and is expected to remain in hospital for at least three weeks, reports say.