Baby born to mother brain dead for four months in Portugal

The healthy baby boy weighing 5.2 lbs was delivered by caesarean section after 32 weeks

The birth was described as 'an extraordinary feat' (Getty Images )

Doctors in Portugal have delivered a baby boy four months after its mother was declared brain dead, hospital officials have said.

A statement from Sao Jose Hospital in Lisbon said the healthy baby weighing 5.2 lbs was delivered on Tuesday by caesarean section after 32 weeks.

The infant’s 37-year-old mother was declared brain dead on 20 February following a brain haemorrhage; however doctors said the foetus was healthy, the BBC reports.

The statement added the hospital’s ethics committee had agreed the procedure with the baby’s father and the mother’s family.

The hospital did not state whether the woman remained on life support following the birth.

In Portugal the birth marks the longest a child has survived in the womb after the mother being declared brain dead.

Luis Graca, the head of the Portuguese Society of Obstetricians, said on Wednesday the birth was “an extraordinary feat”.

In January, a baby boy was born in Wroclaw, Poland after surviving in his mother’s womb for 55 days after she was declared brain following a tumour, Al Jazeera reports.

The baby weighed just 2.2lbs at birth and was taken home in April showing “no complications”. The mother’s life support system was turned off hours after the birth.

Additional reporting by Associated Press