Newborn Angel Perez, the son who was born to a brain-dead mom in Omaha, Nebraska, has officially been released from the hospital. After having been kept alive for seven weeks, Karla Perez was finally given an emergency Cesarean section and allowed to die.
The reason for this was that Angel, the miracle baby who hospital staff said shouldn’t have lived, needed to stay in the womb during those seven weeks for his own survival. Even performing the procedure when they did was risky.
The 22-year-old mother had been complaining about a severe headache just before her collapse in Waterloo. After several tests, Methodist Women’s Hospital found a brain bleed (intracranial hemorrhage) and determined her to be brain-dead. Although Karla Perez was only 22 weeks into her pregnancy, the family had insisted that they try to deliver Angel Perez anyway.
Doctor Todd Lovgern of Methodist Women’s Hospital had told the press about the circumstances surrounding Karla’s collapse.
“Karla was at home, noticed she had a headache and needed to lay down and take a nap. She woke up later that evening around 10:30 or 11 and noticed the headache had become progressively worse and told her family she needed to go to the hospital.”
Had hospital staff performed the procedure immediately, brain-dead mom Karla’s son Angel wouldn’t have survived. They kept his mother on artificial life support for nearly two months at the family’s insistence. This required the involvement of over 100 doctors, nurses, and staff to make it happen.
Karla officially died days after the procedure, and her organs have been donated.
Baby born of brain-dead mom leaves Omaha hospital http://t.co/ajgPKn9xFB pic.twitter.com/OjyKqQwzVj
— MSN (@MSN) June 10, 2015
On Tuesday, Angel Perez was officially released to his grandparents in Waterloo, Modesto, and Berta Jimenez. MSN News claims this arrangement was approved by the boy’s father, according to Methodist Health System spokeswoman Claudia Bohn.
Angel was born at three pounds on April 4 when Karla’s condition began to worsen and had to be kept on life support himself. He has since grown to seven pounds, indicating a successful delivery and relatively good health.
[Image via Methodist Health System / People Magazine ]
