Organ Donor Baby’s Support Removed

LOMA LINDA — A baby born missing most of her brain, who was kept alive on a respirator in hopes that her organs could be donated, was removed from life support after seven days, according to Loma Linda University Medical Center officials.

Baby Cassandra, the fifth anencephalic infant included in Loma Linda’s infant donor program, was still breathing on her own on Thursday but showed signs of deterioration, hospital spokeswoman Anita Rockwell said.

“It is highly unlikely that she will be able to donate organs such as liver and heart because without continuation of the assisted breathing, oxygen deprivation of these organs will occur prior to her death,” she said.

However, the young girl’s heart valves and perhaps her eyes may be donated after her death, Rockwell said.

Kept on Respirators

Loma Linda recently initiated its infant donor program for anencephalic babies, who are born missing most of their brains and part of their skulls.

The hospital’s program calls for such babies to be kept on respirators until they are legally brain dead and their organs can be donated. However, if legal brain death does not occur after seven days, the infants are removed from respirators and allowed to die naturally.

Baby Cassandra, the fifth infant to be accepted for the program, was removed from her life-support system Tuesday, Rockwell said. An infant known only as Baby D continued to breathe Thursday after being taken off the respirator last week, she said.

None of the five babies has so far been successfully used as a donor.

Loma Linda gained national attention when Dr. Leonard Bailey transplanted a baboon heart into the chest of Baby Fae in 1984. She died 20 days later. Since then, Bailey has performed about a dozen human heart transplants on infants and small children.