Woman gave birth several months after brain death

After almost four months on life support in an Atlanta hospital, nurse Adriana Smith, who was diagnosed with brain death back in February, delivered a premature baby boy weighing about 820 g.

As the mother of the woman in labor, April Newkirk, told journalists, Adriana, who formally turned 31 in June, underwent a cesarean section on Friday. Since Tuesday, June 17, her relatives allowed doctors to disconnect the woman from the equipment that had been keeping her alive for the past few months, reported the leading local newspaper Atlanta Journal - Constitution.

"It's hard to even comprehend," Newkirk admitted on a local TV channel. "I'm her mother. I shouldn't be burying my own daughter. She should be burying me."

The doctors at Emory University Hospital kept the woman alive for so long because at the time of brain death she was carrying a child, being approximately in the eighth or ninth week of pregnancy, and Georgia state laws prohibit termination of pregnancy if the fetus already has a detectable heartbeat (which happens at about six weeks).

Thus, the baby born on Friday, who was named Chance, was born about three months premature. He was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit.