During her ninth week of pregnancy, mum Frankielen da Silva Zampoli Padilha died suddenly.
The 21-year-old had suffered a stroke in her hometown of Campo Largo in Brazil and her husband, Muriel Padilha, was told there was little chance of the twin embryos surviving.
The mother’s ventilator was switched off in February but to the surprise of doctors, the embryo’s hearts continued to beat.
Da Silva Zampoli Padilha was kept alive for 123 days, before the twins were delivered via emergency caesarean section.
The babies’ father is calling the birth a “miracle.”
“Frankielen was a generous and loving person. I believe God chose her for this purpose so a miracle could happen.”
The 24-year-old, who had been with his wife for six years, said that she regularly appeared to him after her death whenever he was despairing.
“One night she sat on my bed and said: ‘Baby I can’t come back to you anymore. I must stay. I am in a beautiful place now. You’ve got a big mission still to complete. You have to look after our children and you have to be strong and move on and live your life’.”
Brain dead pregnant woman was kept alive for 123 days before delivering healthy twins via a caesarean section https://t.co/6RADCMAZXc
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 11, 2017
Staff in the Nosso Senhora do Rocio hospital regularly sang and talked to the twins while they were still in the womb. They also hung pictures of their mother around the bed where she lay.
The hospital’s head of neurological ICU, Dr Dalton Rivabem, told the Daily Mail that they sought help from a doctor in Portugal to keep the babies alive.
“Frankielen’s organs were all intact and working as if she was still with us. We took the decision to keep her alive to save her unborn children. And every day we watched them grow normally.”
“There have been other cases, but ours is the longest one with 123 days – four months.”
The twins, Ana Vitoria and Asaph, were kept in incubators for three months and are now being looked after by their grandmother.
