Skater Jayne Campbell Soliman Gives Birth After Death (Photos)

Posted on January 14, 2009

Jayne Campbell Soliman was a champion ice skater who collapsed and was declared brain dead while pregnant. Two days later, she gave birth to a daughter. Read more on this amazing story below.

Jayne Soliman suffered a brain hemorrhage but was kept alive by machines before doctors were able to deliver her daughter, Aya Jayne, by Caesarean section, according to The Times of London. Aya is the Muslim word for “miracle.”

“She is so tiny, but she is a little fighter just like her mother,” Mahmoud Soliman, the girl’s father, told The Times.

Jayne Campbell Soliman was only 25 weeks pregnant when she complained of a headache and collapsed in her bedroom on Wednesday. After arriving by air to a hospital in Oxford, England, she was declared brain dead and given large doses of steroids to help her unborn baby’s lungs develop. Doctors then performed the emergency C-section in hopes of giving her child life.

“A midwife picked tiny Aya up and put her little face up to Jayne’s,” family friend Lucine Phillips told The Times. “It was just like welcoming any new baby into the world … but we also had to say goodbye to Jayne.”

Aya was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit. Soliman was originally told his daughter would have to be there for two weeks but was then doing so well that she was transferred to a local hospital on Saturday — the day of her mother’s funeral.

Jayne Campbell Soliman, 41, was a British professional free skating champion in 1989. She also appeared in several international competitions in the 1980’s.

After leaving compeitive skating, she went on to teach, including time in Dubai where she met her husband. Aya was the couple’s first child.

Bittersweet story huh?

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$Jayne Campbell Soliman\'s baby girl Aya$ $Jayne Campbell Soliman\'s baby girl Aya$