After a total of 32 weeks gestation, the baby boy weighs just under 5 pounds, 3 ounces, but physicians say he is perfectly healthy. Obstetricians had been monitoring his health closely ever since the 37-year-old mother was declared brain dead.
Luís Graça, the president of the Portuguese Society of Obstetrics and Maternal Medicine, told the newspaper Público that the case set a national — and possibly a world — record for fetuses surviving long periods in the womb after the mothers have suffered brain death.
According to The Telegraph‘s translation, Mr. Graça told Público, “They were lucky that the mother hung in there all that time. Most women die in these situations. It is extremely difficult to keep the pregnant woman alive by mechanical means while ensuring that the [fetus] advances.”
According to a BBC News report, physicians at Lisbon Central have not said whether the baby boy’s mother remains on life support.
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