Brain-damaged mom gives birth

2005-07-21 17:24

Chicago - A severely disabled, brain-damaged woman who was discovered to be pregnant while living in a nursing home has given birth to an apparently healthy baby girl, said authorities.

Last week, a lawsuit filed claims that the woman was raped at home in suburban Bloomingdale. The woman had cerebral palsy and was so severely disabled as she must use a wheelchair and be fed through a tube.

The woman was scheduled to have a Caesarean section in mid-August, but she had the procedure on Wednesday evening at Rush University Medical Centre here because she was suffering from a dangerous complication of pregnancy called pre-eclampsia.

A family member said the baby, a girl, appeared healthy, but was in intensive care.

Management company, doctor 'were negligent'

Bloomingdale police and the Illinois department of public health were investigating the pregnancy and the circumstances at Alden Village Health Facility for Children and Young Adults.

Representatives said the company that operates the facility, Alden Management Services, was co-operating with the investigation.

The suit claimed the facility, the management company and the woman's doctor were negligent.

The woman and her twin sister had lived at Alden Village since they were 10, but were removed when the pregnancy was discovered last month.

In 1996, a baby boy was born to a woman in a chronic vegetative state in Rochester, New York. The family took custody of the boy, and a onetime nursing home employee was convicted of rape.

The woman, who had been injured in a car accident in 1985, died a year after the child was born, never having regained consciousness.

- AP