Baby of brain dead woman finally delivered weighing less than 2 pounds

[Soubriquet]

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It’s evil what was done to that poor woman. At one point she was literally rotting just so she could incubate the fetus that little bit longer. He’s finally been born, and he’s so small. They are confident he will make it, but I think they HAVE to say that to justify what they did.

Least she can rest in peace now

Born not even at 0.9 kg the baby is very highly having a lot of medical needs all his life. Most likely SEN too.

This is what I wanted to say (but you have said it better)
Of course, we all hope the baby does well and goes on to have a fulfilling life.
But I imagine that some counselling may be needed along the way.

I had not realised that the Mother was only 9wks pg and that the wider family were against the process that has been enforced upon them (& medical bills?)

'Under His Eye' indeed.

the wider family were against the process that has been enforced upon them (& medical bills?)

Honestly, neither of these things is clear. Adriana's mother has said that she wanted the family to choose, not the doctors. Adriana's partner and father of the baby has not said anything. Adriana's mother, April Newkirk, has set up a GoFundMe that has raised $200k+ but the description on it is rather vague - so it is possible that Adriana's insurance covers a lot of the bills (I believe from other posts that Ariana worked at the hospital so she should have had some insurance)

“We didn’t have a choice or a say about it,” Newkirk said before Chance’s birth. “We want the baby. That’s a part of my daughter. But the decision should have been left to us – not the state.”

No. I would not have wanted my baby to spend 20 weeks in a completely silent, stimulation free environment. And that is before we think of the impact of the drugs being used to maintain the mother’s dead body.

A lot of American insurances will refuse to cover emergency situations because they’re not the right choice. I can’t imagine it’ll be easy to convince them they should cover something like this. The baby is also likely to face huge health issues, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they need money for that too.

Would a premature baby be covered by his father's insurance?

In the article I read it said the baby was delivered at 24 weeks, but I've since read another in which Adriana's mum said she was 21 weeks on 16th May, so if the baby was born last week it is probably more like 25 weeks, and that does give him a better chance of survivl, but still a high risk of morbidity.

May the Lord Open...

Reminds me of the episode of The Handmaid's Tale, I think it's in Season 3, where the keep Natalie on life support after she was shot, and the doctors refer to their patient as the foetus...

I wonder if we will ever hear the outcome? I’m torn-I can absolutely understand the family wanting privacy, but I also want there to be public discourse about it.

A lot of the public discourse can be had without knowledge of the health outcomes for Chance - in this case, the governor has stated that withdrawal of life support would not have constituted an illegal abortion but this should be clarified by whatever legal process is required and any gestational limits for which this is/isn’t true under state law. It is unacceptable for doctors (across the US and in other scenarios such as dangerous pregnancies) to have to act against the best interests of patients for fear of prosecution.

I think the longest follow up that's been released publicly has been for 3 years. As far as I'm aware, none is the baby's/toddlers/preschoolers have had any health issues relating to how they were gestated. Obviously that's too early though to know about emotional and mental health implications. The article I read didn't mention whether they were any issues relating to prematurity, which could be the case here (though I don't think the should be a reason not to pursue this sort of pregnancy given we routinely save babies at this gestation).

Has there been a comparable case?

It depends what you mean by comparable. Broadly yes.

We've (as in throughout the world) have been occasionally done this for decades. There are over 30 cases in the medical literature. But this is the earliest gestation that is been done, to my knowledge. In the other cases that I'm aware of, it was done in agreement with family, reserved then imposed on them, which explains why they didn't get as much media attention.

Other babies have been 'supported' for longer - there was a Czech case where mum was kept alive from 18w - 34w, Portugal 17w - 32w, Canada 22w-27w. This was one was 9w, so significantly earlier in gestation, but sure to premature delivery, not as long as some being supported.

When you say “broadly” comparable-do you mean the mother was actually dead-as in brain stem dead?

@CurlewKate the Czech case certainly was after brain death - the mother had a brain haemorrhage at 16 weeks ( not 18w)

Yes.

The process is cashed 'maternal somatic support after brain death'. It's done in countries with liberal abortion rights as well as restrictive ones. The only difference here is that it's was started earlier, and without the agreement of the family.

I don’t agree with this at all. Where does it say she was rotting/decomposing though? Not that I have knowledge of stuff like this though

Fuck no. Because pregnancy prepares baby for the outside world. I bonded with DS when I was pregnant with him, played him music, talked to him, stroked my tummy. He knew my voice, my heartbeat and my scent. If this had happened to me when I was pregnant I'd have wanted us to go together and I'd have met DS in the next life. It's got nothing to do with feminism and more to do with being horrified by this dystopian nightmare.

I think it's just inevitable. No artificial life support can completelytreplicate all the functions of a living body, particularly the cellular and molecular processes that maintain tissue integrity. Ultimately a combination of cells being destroyed by their own enzymes, plus bacterial activity and environmental conditions, mean that the body will start to break down and there is nothing that can be done realistically to prevent that given that you have to maintain the body's temperature.