Woman Kept on Life Support For 2 Months So Her Unborn Baby Could Survive

The birth of Angel Perez was nothing short of a miracle. After Karla Perez — just 22 weeks pregnant — was left brain dead after suffering a stroke, doctors kept her alive for nearly eight weeks, just long enough to deliver her unborn child in a historic procedure.

Baby Angel was born earlier this month, according to Methodist Health System, with the help of a team of more than 100 doctors, nurses, and staff in the first delivery of its kind in the US since 1999.

"Our team took a giant leap of faith," Sue Korth, vice president of Methodist Women's Hospital, said in a statement Thursday while announcing the successful procedure. "We were attempting something that not many before us have been able to do."

Because the baby was too young to survive outside the womb, doctors had hoped to sustain Perez until her 32nd week of pregnancy, but her condition deteriorated in the final weeks, resulting in a cesarean section on April 4, which was 54 days since she was declared brain dead. It was only her 30th week of pregnancy.

Angel, who weighed just 2 pounds and 16 ounces at birth, is currently in an incubator and feeding through a tube, the hospital group said. Noted neonatologist Dr. Brady Kerr, "We are cautiously optimistic."