In Argentina, Analia Bouter insisted on seeing the body of her daughter, who had been born three months prematurely.
Twelve hours after her baby was pronounced dead by doctors on Tuesday morning, Bouter found the infant alive and breathing in the morgue (video below).
Bouter told local media: "I went with Fabian, my husband, at around 9pm to see her body. We opened the drawer and I touched her hand. I felt her look at me and when I saw her alive I fell to my knees. Then suddenly she let out a cry. She was freezing in there."
Bouter and her husband have named their daughter, who is healthy in hospital, Luz Milagro, which translates as "Light Miracle."
Bouter said: "Luz is a miracle. If we had left it to go and see her another day, she may not have held on."
Jose Luis Meirino, director of the hospital, said: "We work under strict protocols, but there's no explanation for this. The baby was attended to by obstetricians.. and they all reached the same conclusion, that this girl was stillborn.’
Meirino suggested that hypothermia may have caused the baby to go into hibernation, which may have caused her vital signs to not show up.
I find it a little hard to understand, and disturbing, that more than one doctor pronounced her stillborn. How quickly was she put in the morgue, that they couldn't tell that she was still alive?
Thank God her parents got her back.
What a lucky mom and what a lucky baby! I've heard of young children surviving extreme hypothermia--there was this one two-year-old who was nearly frozen solid, outside in the snow for a whole night, and survived with only a couple of toes lost, I think. This is crazy, though--a preemie surviving that! Wow.
Three months premature is, what, 28 weeks? The kid's not out of the woods yet, but that's enough to survive on. Premature babies' vital signs *are* difficult to measure, granted. But somebody's going to be suspended over this. Leaving a baby in a morgue drawer for twelve hours, even if it was an honest mistake, isn't exactly good medical practice.
O.O wow.