Brain Dead?- Really

 

Baby is born to mom 55 days after she is declared brain-dead

By Dave Andrusko

Saved: Baby Wojtus’s mother died when 17 weeks pregnant, but as the baby was still alive, her vital functions were sustained until he could be delivered at a hospital in Wroclaw, Poland

The medical community in Poland is hailing it as nothing short of a miracle.
“Baby Wojtus” was born two months after his mother was declared brain-dead and, according to the Daily Mail, was recently discharged from a hospital in the western Polish city of Wroclaw.
The Daily Mail reports that Wojtus’s birth was the first to a brain-dead woman in Poland, and the sixteenth in the world.

The 41-year-old unidentified mom was 17 weeks pregnant when she died of a brain tumor. She had lived a normal existence for a decade after learning of the tumor’s existence, until she suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed.
Sara Malm reported that the woman

passed away on the way to Wroclaw University Hospital, but medical staff were able to stabilize her vital organs before the foetus died.

In addition to be connected to a respirator, the mom was fed through a feeding tube and given medications intravenously to “to fight off infections and falling blood pressure,” Malm reported.
Andrzej Kubler, head of the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Therapy at Wroclaw University, said, ”We had no experience with such a long-term maintenance of vital functions of a patient with irreversible brain damage.”

Staying alive: Baby Wojtus was delivered 55 days after his mother ‘died’, weighing just 2.2lbs, but has now been allowed to leave the hospital with his father.

But, miraculously, little Wojtus was born by Cesarean section on January 9 at 27 weeks, weighing 2.2 pounds. Doctors determined they couldn’t wait any longer; he’d been in his brain-dead mom’s womb for 55 days!
Barbara Krolak-Olejnik, the head of the neonatal unit at Wroclaw hospital, told the AFP news agency, “It’s rare to successfully maintain a pregnancy for so long.” Ms. Krolak-Olejnik added, “Her whole family wanted us to try to save the child.”
Tucked away at the end of Malm’s story is this beautiful nugget:

According to local media, Wojtus’s father had been living in the hospital since his wife’s body was admitted, with the nurses saying that the father was very involved in his son’s rehabilitation.

Source: NRLC News