Adriana Smith's child was delivered on Friday, according to her family, as reported by NBC News.
It had been around four months since the 30-year-old was declared brain dead after a blood clot. As a result of the state of Georgia's strict abortion laws, the hospital kept her alive on a ventilator until the fetus had developed enough to be delivered. The family was not consulted about the measures.
The child, who has been named Chance, weighed just over half a kilo at birth and is now in the neonatal ward.
He is expected to be okay. He is fighting, says Smith's mother April Newkirk to the TV channel WXIA of Atlanta.
After the delivery, the family has decided to discontinue their daughter's life-sustaining measures, according to the mother.
In Georgia, abortion is in practice prohibited after the sixth week of pregnancy. Adriana Smith was pregnant in around the eighth week when she was declared brain dead.
The state introduced so-called "heartbeat laws" in 2022, which prohibit abortion from when a heartbeat can be detected from the embryo, after the Supreme Court ruling Roe vs Wade was overturned. Thus, the fetus that Smith was carrying was considered a separate legal person, who had to be kept alive despite the mother being dead.
It is unclear who is responsible for the costs of keeping Smith alive, as well as for her son's neonatal care.
