Brain-Dead Woman Gives Birth to Healthy Daughter

A healthy baby girl was delivered today by doctors who had sustained the life of the infant’s brain-dead mother for 7 1/2 weeks to allow the fetus to develop.

After the birth the mother was disconnected from the life-support systems and died, hospital officials said.

The baby, Michelle Odette Poole, had been the center of a court fight between the mother’s parents, who wanted doctors to disconnect life-support systems when their daughter became brain dead, and the father, who went to court to protect the developing fetus.

The father, Derrick Poole, was at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital when doctors delivered his daughter at 8:53 a.m., according to hospital spokeswoman Denise Clarke. Poole had no immediate comment.

The baby weighed four pounds, five ounces at delivery and was 16 1/2 inches long.

Uncomplicated Delivery

“She is in good condition, and the prognosis is favorable,” Clarke said. “The Caesarean section delivery was uncomplicated, and Michelle breathed on her own after birth. She has been transferred to the intensive care nursery for continued monitoring.”

Poole, 31, was granted custody of the infant.

Poole met his fiancee, Marie Odette Henderson, last year at a party. They were looking forward to their December wedding and Michelle’s birth when a brain tumor caused the mother to collapse on June 4. The 34-year-old woman, six months pregnant, was declared legally dead three days later as a result of a stroke.

After learning that her parents, Edna and Otis Henderson of Detroit, had decided to have her life-support systems turned off, Poole obtained a court order to keep them on. He later reached a settlement with the parents that allowed the fetus to develop until it had a better chance of surviving outside its mother’s body. The baby was 32 weeks old upon delivery today.