An Atlanta hospital is keeping a brain-dead woman alive because she is pregnant, according to her family.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old registered nurse at Emory University Hospital, experienced severe headaches when she was almost nine weeks pregnant in early February, so she went to Northside Hospital for treatment, her mother, April Newkirk, told 11Alive.
At Northside, she was given medication and released without any tests or CT scan being done on her, her mother said.
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“If they had done that or kept her overnight, they would have caught it. It could have been prevented,” Newkirk added.
The morning after her release from Northside, her boyfriend found her gasping for air in her sleep and she was immediately taken to Emory Decatur before being transferred to Emory University Hospital. After a CT scan, doctors found multiple blood clots in Smith’s brain.
“They asked me if I would agree to a procedure to relieve the pressure, and I said yes,” Newkirk said. “Then they called me back and said they couldn’t do it.”
At this point, she had been declared brain dead. Her family, together with her young son, has been by her side ever since. “She’s been breathing through machines for more than 90 days,” Newkirk said. “It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there. And her son—I bring him to see her.”
This Tuesday, Smith was moved to Emory Midtown for better obstetric care. There, doctors plan to keep her alive until her pregnancy is 32 weeks old and the baby can survive outside the womb. Smith is currently 21 weeks pregnant, her family said.
Smith is being kept alive under Georgia’s heartbeat law which bans abortion once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks into pregnancy. According to 11Alive, the law includes “limited exceptions for rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger. But in Adriana’s case, the law created a legal gray area.”
The platform reports that because Smith is brain dead and no longer at risk herself, her doctors are expected to maintain life support based on the law.
Smith’s family is troubled that everything happening now is without their consent. “I think every woman should have the right to make their own decision,” Newkirk said. “And if not, then their partner or their parents.”
To make matters worse for them, the family has learned that the baby has fluid on the brain and doctors can’t tell how much fluid.
“She’s pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” Newkirk said.
“This decision should’ve been left to us. Now we’re left wondering what kind of life he’ll have—and we’re going to be the ones raising him,” she said.
While Smith’s body is being kept alive, her family has also had to deal with rising hospital bills. “They’re hoping to get the baby to at least 32 weeks. But every day that goes by, it’s more cost, more trauma, more questions,” Newkirk said.
