Baby born to mother who has been brain dead since Boxing Day

A baby has been born prematurely to a woman who has been in a coma since December.

Catarina Sequeira was declared brain dead on December 26, just days after having an acute asthma attack at her home in Portugal, reports the BBC.

Sequeira, 26, was a talented canoeist who had represented her country but suffered from asthma since she was a child.

She was 19 weeks pregnant at the time of the attack and doctors hoped that by putting her in an induced coma, the baby could survive.

For 56 days, a ventilator helped to keep her unborn child alive in her womb.

Doctors wanted the baby to reach 32 weeks' gestation – which would have been last Friday – but when Sequeira's condition deteriorated, the decision was made to deliver the child early via emergency caesarean on Thursday.

Thirty-two weeks was considered the period at which babies had a very high probability of survival, hospital officials said.

The baby, named Salvador, is now being cared for in a neonatal hospital. He was born weighing 1.7kg (3.75 lbs).

Medical staff decided to keep the child alive in his mother's womb following discussions with her family.

Sequeira had also never opted out of Portugal's presumed-consent organ donation law.

"Being a donor is not just about being in a position to donate a liver or heart or lung, but also being in a position to give yourself so a child can live," the head of the hospital's ethics committee, Filipe Almeida, explained.

"And no-one has the right to interrupt the mother's decision process."

Sequeira's family, and the baby's father, wanted the child to be born.

Her mother, Maria de Fátima Branco, told Portuguese TV that she had said goodbye to her daughter on 26 December.

A funeral has since been held for Sequeira.