H1N1 mother gives birth to healthy baby

(ANSA) - Rome, March 27 - A woman affected with the sometimes deadly H1N1 flu virus has given birth to a healthy baby girl after spending three weeks on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), sources at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I hospital said Friday.
    The technique involves bypassing the patient's lungs by draining his or her blood, oxygenating it outside the body, and returning it to the body.
    This was the first such case in Italy and the third worldwide, said Lazio Governor Nicola Zingaretti.
    "(The patient) was sedated for 20 days while a machine substituted her lungs," he wrote on Facebook.
    "We give thanks and we congratulate the doctors, nurses, and professionals who gave their all to this case". H1N1 or swine flu killed 17,000 people in a 2009-2010 pandemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).