[lobo221]

Polish doctors have managed to save the life of a child who was born 55 days after his mother died from brain cancer, Sputnik Poland reported.

A 41-year-old woman gave birth to her child two months after being admitted to hospital in Wroclaw, Poland in the final stages of brain cancer, Sputnik Poland reported.

The woman was 17 weeks pregnant, and doctors at Wroclaw's University Hospital decided to try and save the life of the unborn child by artificially maintaining his mother's vital bodily functions.

The baby boy weighed around one kilogram when he was born, and he spent the next three weeks in intensive care in the hospital where he gained around three kilograms in weight, and became able to breathe independently.

He has now been taken home by his father, and will be an outpatient at the hospital's pediatrics department until he is three years old.

Professor Barbara Królak-Olejnik, head of University Hospital's neonatal unit, told Sputnik Poland that doctors took the decision to prolong the mother's life after consulting her family.

"At the beginning, in constant consultation with anesthetists, obstetricians and neonatologists, we planned to prolong the pregnancy to 30 weeks. At that stage of pregnancy the fetus is developed enough and does not need intensive therapy after birth," Królak-Olejnik said.

"Unfortunately in the 26th week of pregnancy the condition of the fetus was so precarious that there was a danger of miscarriage. We had to make an urgent decision – can we fight for his life?"

"The fetus was very small and premature, but we had to try and meet this challenge, otherwise the child would have died in his mother's womb," she explained.

Królak-Olejnik said that the case was a first for pediatricians at the hospital in Wroclaw; there has previously been one similar case in Poland, but the mother had been in a later stage of pregnancy.

"I would prefer that this kind of situation doesn't happen again, for this is a great joy amid great sorrow. But I am sure that all the staff at the hospital would be ready to meet such a challenge," the doctor said.

Source

[lesslis2015]

Amazing! Can't imagine the opposite emotions that father is dealing with. Hope they both live happy healthy lives.

[winvens]

Twenty-six weeks gestation is a viable age, not a miscarriage.

I wish that kid and his dad all the best.

A little boy here was born at 25 weeks after his mom stroked out and was declared brain dead. She was kept on life support for 3 or 4 months IIRC.

[Sharon]

That's incredible, what an amazing story