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

[Soubriquet]

link

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

The baby wouldn't have suffered if it had been allowed to die naturally with the mother. Now it might suffer due to oxygen deprivation and then being artificially kept alive for months inside its dead mother.

In fairness I think it depends on how far along you are. I hold my hands up I hadn’t seen the 9 weeks part. That being said I don't think there’s a need for the selfish comment but it is mumsnet after all we’re people don’t seem to be able to see a conflicting view without being unpleasant about it.

I take it the monstrous people who forced this woman to be an incubator and kept a baby in a rotting corpse will pay for all medical expenses, childcare and education? No? Thought not. I hope that child has a rich and full life, but the mental trauma from the circumstances of his birth alone makes that unlikely. God bless the child.

Horrible - simply horrible. Gilead has come to fruition right here.

And with the whole story publicised, and out there in perpetuity for everyone to see, this poor child will likely be able to read it some day. He doesn't even have the hope of never discovering the devastating circumstances under which he came into the world.

Sometimes it's not necessarily better to know the truth.

I was delivered at 33 weeks by emergency c section as my Mum had pre-eclampsia. It was the 1960s, so a bit more scarily early than it would be now, but apart from six weeks in an incubator I didn’t need any medical intervention.
8 weeks is so early on, it feels very wrong to keep a baby alive in these circumstances. I hope now he’s here that he does do well.

It’s not a time to count chickens.

It’s not a time to be hyper vigilant about something which doesn’t seem to be a problem when there are so many other issues, but that’s your call.

Will we find out the medical state of this child in the weeks and months to come? I hope the child grows up healthy and happy.

I personally am pro life and I came to my view after seeing both sides of the arguement and coming to my own moral personal belief as to what I believe is morally correct.

I understand and see the reasoning in many counterarguments to my views though. Especially when talking about rape, incest and medical issues.

But I feel every pro-life/pro-choice debate on here descends into name calling and insults and attacks. "Baby killers", "women haters" etc. Ultimately me be being pro-life will have no impact on UK society. The same way as those who are pro-choice on here will have any impact as to US abortion legalisation.

Pro-life? This mother is dead, the foetus would have died with her were it not for the macabre medical extremism that makes the normal human's stomach churn.

Pro-life = keep baby alive at any cost
Pro-choice=baby needs more than just being alive. being healthy, loved and cared for are basic minimums a baby should start life with

9 weeks is absolutely insane, grotesque.

I apologise @Wavescrashingonthebeach for misunderstanding your post.

Will we find out the medical state of this child in the weeks and months to come? I hope the child grows up healthy and happy.

Not unless his father or grandmother wish to disclose it. The doctors should maintain patient confidentiality.

I completely agree with this. I find it really distasteful how people think it makes them look better or more moral somehow when they come out with these "oh i'd rather they saved the baby" statements.

To me, it says the complete opposite of what they're intending, it says, I would choose to gestate a foetus (from 9 weeks!) in my decomposing lifeless body, to have that child subjected to the countless drugs needed to sustain life functions in a corpse, to have that child born motherless and quite likely severely disabled, and to grow up with all that knowledge. Just so I can profess on social media that I am a better person. It's utterly gross.

I think it’s terrible that they ignored the DNR and went against the families wishes. One thing I don’t understand is how her body could be rotting if it is kept alive artificially? Plenty of people don’t consent and are kept artificially alive and they don’t rot??

You don't know any of that though. Those things could happen, the baby could also be very healthy. It will be a case by case basis but you're assuming the worst.

It’s sickening. A 9 week old foetus is not viable and cannot be compared to a third trimester pregnancy. How many of us don’t tell anyone we’re pregnant til the 12 week scan as soon as many pregnancies are unviable and lost before that time? It would have been a tragedy for the family instead of an unknown horror for our society.

There are millions of children who are already here who aren’t being cared for, we don’t need every fertilised egg being coaxed into existence by any means possible. And it’s utter ludicrousness to think that child will grow up hale and hearty. I hope that poor woman didn’t suffer and that if there is an afterlife that she is at peace and didn’t know what did to her body.

And all over the media too, poor baby x

There are a number of ways that people are kept "artificially alive" - for example, someone on a ventilator cannot breathe by themselves, but they are not brain dead, so their brain continues to keep cellular processes going etc.

We know what happens to babies out of the womb when the only directive is to sustain the life - it looks like a Rumanian orphanage in the communist regime and we know the psychological and developmental damage that did.

A womb is more than a sterile cot visited only for feeding and changing. It's a complex and changing environment that changes with mood, with hormones, sounds, voice and movements. There is bonding achieved through rhythm and touch. Love makes a difference.

We are understanding more and more about epigenetics and how genes are switched on or off according to stimulus and environment of the mother and consequently the environment of the baby, and, for girls, her children too.

We should all be kind of horrified by the reduction of a pregnancy to oxygen and nutrients. Perhaps it can be justified in the very, very short term, as mentioned above, to strengthen the lungs before a pre-term delivery but this story, I can't believe how anyone could justify it.

Totally agree. The poor family will also be plunged into poverty paying off medical bills for decades as well.

Maybe therin lies the true motivation: God complex, fame and some extent cash. Win win for the consultants!

• extra not extend!

I don't think any of the doctors have got famous or rich from this. The life support etc would have been used for another patient if the mother had died.

I am not familiar with the case in this thread but simply put, our bodies are meant to move and are not designed to stay put without movement for prolonged periods. The weight of the body always pressing in the same spots creates pressure ulcers in the skin and these can become infected.

It is an issue with all patients who are bed-ridden long term. Here is a link to the NHS on the issue (Trigger warning: images of infected skin legions): www.nhs.uk/conditions/pressure-sores/

I feel quite strongly that this is bordering on evil. Children grow and develop and hear in the womb. They hear the mother's voice, taste what she eats and experience her heartbeat and moods. This poor child was grown in a void and has now been born without a mum.

it's bordering on Nazi-ism, experimenting with human life with no thought or care for the individual involved. That poor foetus was used as a specimen to explore a theory. There ultimate happiness and wellbeing were not considered.