Nahariya, Israel (LifeNews.com) -- A newborn baby who reportedly "came back to life" hours after her birth and placement in a medical cooler has died. Hospital officials are now saying the infant was never dead but only had a difficult to detect heartbeat and pulse because she was born prematurely.

The baby has made international headlines with early reports indicating she survived an abortion and later reports saying birth was induced prematurely because tests reportedly indicated she was dead in her mother's womb.

Now, the latest news coming from Israel is that the baby's mother had a miscarriage that led to the infant's premature birth.

The Jerusalem Post now indicates the baby was supposedly thought to have been deceased at the time of the birth and was brought to a hospital morgue for burial. After she was placed in a medical cooler for hours and subsequently viewed by her father before the burial, she began showing signs of life and doctors rushed her to intensive care.

The Post indicates the baby died Tuesday morning despite efforts to save her.

"When we unwrapped the baby to see her, she realized it was moving. I began screaming and ran with it toward the doctors," the father told the newspaper.

The newspaper also quoted Prof. Arthur Eidelman, the former head of the neonatal unit at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, as saying there was no "medical miracle" in the case and initial reports indicated.

He said the baby "didn't die and come back to life."

"This is nonsense. There was no miracle. Putting a live miscarried fetus in the cooler slows down the metabolism, so it remains in suspended animation," he told the paper.

Eidelman said physicians should have checked the infant for a heartbeat shortly after the miscarriage instead of pronouncing her dead upon birth.

"It was a borderline case," he said, and added that the baby would likely have suffered from disabilities had she survived the ordeal.

The baby has been buried in the Western Galilee village of Kafr Yassif late Tuesday.

 

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