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| Sandra Pedro, Baby Lourenco's Mother |
National Right to Life
Lucy Thornton, writing for the British publication, The Mirror, explained today:
When the doctor declared: “Baby Lourenco has been born and he has cried,” cheers erupted from the nurses who had spent the past 107 days caring for the unborn tot.
So, the baby had been prenatally diagnosed with some malady that might place Lourenco in peril? Perhaps his spine was not closing properly, or fluids were building up in his chest?
No, it was much more extraordinary than in utero surgery, something doctors and nurses alike called a miracle.
In February Sandra Pedro, Baby Lourenco’s mother, was diagnosed as brain dead. But in spite of early doubts, doctors at the hospital in Lisbon, Portugal had tenderly coaxed her baby through another 3 ½ months before delivering him by Caesarian Section on June 7. He weighed 5lb, 2oz.
Thornton beautifully tells the story of the love and devotion shown to mother and child that made his successful delivery possible. First, the background.Thornton writes: Sandra had arrived in Dr. [Susana ] Alfonso’s ICU at 17 weeks pregnant on February 20 with a throbbing headache. Just hours later she was pronounced dead.
Doctors thought the baby was dead too until tests proved otherwise.
“It was something that shocked us a lot,” said Dr. Alfonso. “We knew that she was pregnant but then we realized the baby was alive when she was not. It was a big shock.
“It was very rapid when they decided that the best thing to do was to carry on with life,” she concluded.
But it was more than just “carrying on” with life. Doctors analyzed Baby Lourenco’s needs. But to maintain him all that time required attending to the baby’s emotional ones as well.
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