Machines to Keep Woman Alive So Fetus Can Grow

An agreement permitting a Santa Clara hospital to keep a brain-dead schoolteacher alive until her baby can be delivered was signed late Tuesday by a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, heading off a legal contest between the woman’s boyfriend and her parents.

Derrick Poole, 31, who had been living with Marie Odette Henderson, 34, had obtained a temporary restraining order hours before life-support systems were to be disconnected June 12 at the behest of the woman’s parents, Otis and Edna Henderson of Detroit.

Father Gets Custody

The accord between them, signed by Judge John A. Flaherty, acknowledged Poole as the father of the 27-week-old fetus and awarded him custody. Poole said he was delighted and added that his sisters would help him raise the baby, which has been determined to be a girl and whom he has already named Michelle.

“I can deal with the responsibility of raising the baby,” Poole said after the agreement was signed. “I love Michelle and I’m going to keep on loving her. Nothing can change that.”

He said he and Henderson had been anticipating the birth happily and had planned to marry about Christmastime. But the young woman began complaining of headaches and had surgery June 4 for a brain tumor. She failed to regain consciousness.

She was pronounced legally brain-dead three days later.

Parents Change Minds

By Tuesday, her parents had agreed to rescind their initial direction to the doctors at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara and to allow their daughter to remain on life-support systems until the baby could be delivered by Caesarean section.

The order signed by Flaherty directed that “all medical and hospital care and treatment provided to unborn Baby Poole while in the uterus of Marie Odette Henderson will continue with the intent of accomplishing the safe delivery of unborn Baby Poole if possible.”

The baby’s chances of survival are increased by staying in the uterus as long as possible, doctors pointed out. As of last week, at 26 weeks, chances of survival for the fetus if taken by Caesarean section once the mother’s blood circulation and other body functions deteriorate were estimated to be only about 10%

Dr. Stephen Fernbach, director of the intensive care nursery at Kaiser, said then that those chances would increase to 75% in another two to three weeks. But, he said, in most cases the body of a brain-dead person can be maintained only for about two weeks.