Brain-dead Canadian woman on life support gives birth to baby boy

Doctors in Canada have delivered a frail but healthy baby boy from a brain-dead woman kept on life support, the infant's father wrote in a blog post.

Dylan Benson, 32, had been keeping a running online account of his personal tragedy, recording his emotions as he grieved for his wife and prepared for the birth of his son.

Doctors, who had hoped to be able to keep the pregnancy going for 34 weeks, over the weekend delivered the boy via Caesarean section after 28 weeks.

"On Saturday evening, my beautiful and amazing son, Iver Cohen Benson, was born," Benson wrote on Monday.

Benson added that the day after delivering the baby, doctors disconnected the life support equipment that had allowed his wife's body to incubate their unborn son. She died soon after.

Robyn Benson, 32, collapsed in late December when she was 22 weeks pregnant, and was declared brain dead from a blood haemorrhage.

The moving online odyssey was followed by readers around the internet, who donated C$152,000 (HK$1.1 million) for the medical bills.