Adriana Smith Update: Baby Born Via C-Section

The family of a brain dead pregnant woman says her baby has been delivered via Cesarean section after they say she was forced to stay on life support for several months due to Georgia’s abortion law.

Adriana Smith’s son Chance was born prematurely on June 13 and is in the neonatal intensive care unit, according to her family.

“He’s expected to be OK,” April Newkirk, Smith’s mother, told Atlanta NBC affiliate 11 Alive. “He’s just fighting. We just want prayers for him. Just keep praying. He’s here now.”

Newkirk did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment on Tuesday.

Smith was declared brain dead in February, but because of Georgia’s LIFE Act — which bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks — doctors told Newkirk they needed to keep her daughter alive until the fetus could be delivered, 11 Alive reported in May.

Smith, a registered nurse, started experiencing health problems in February at nine weeks pregnant. Initially, she had a severe headache and visited a nearby hospital, where doctors treated her and sent her home. But the next day, her boyfriend noticed her struggling to breathe and called 911.

A CT scan at Emory University Hospital revealed Smith had blood clots in her brain, and by Feb. 19, doctors had declared her brain dead and placed her on a ventilator. Yet they said they had to kept her on life support because of the state’s abortion law, Newkirk told 11 Alive.

In May, the state Attorney General’s Office said the LIFE Act does not “(require) medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death” because ending life support “is not an action with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy,” 11 Alive reported.

But the law creates “legal gray area,” the outlet noted. A sponsor of the bill Republican state Sen. Ed Setzler told the Associated Press that he thought it was “completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child. … I think the hospital is acting appropriately.”

Emory University Hospital did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.

Newkirk told 11 Alive that the situation has been “torture for me. I see my daughter breathing by the ventilator, but she’s not there.”

The baby boy, Chance, weighs 1 pound 13 ounces, Newkirk said. She also shared that the hospital was going to take Smith off life support on June 17, which has been “hard to process.”

“I’m her mother,” Newkirk said. “I shouldn’t be burying my daughter. My daughter should be burying me.”

Newkirk said Smith “was a ray of light” and looking forward to having a baby join her 7-year-old son.

“She loved to travel. She loved her family. She’s a good mom,” Newkirk said. “She wanted to advance her education. She loved people.”

Smith turned 31 over the weekend. Her mom shared a final wish for her daughter.

“If I could say one more thing to her, I guess I would tell her that I love her,” Newkirk said. “She was a great daughter.”

The family has a GoFundMe to help pay for Smith’s hospital bills and to assist with raising her two children. Newkirk expressed frustration with how the law impacted her daughter.

“All women should have a choice about their body,” she said. “I want people to know that.”