ALS patient gives birth to baby boy (2)

（Xinhua） 11:14, January 31, 2013

Lu Yuanfang, who has spinal muscular atrophy, gives birth to a premature boy in Beijing, Jan. 30. The birth marked a medical first in China. The mother and the son remain in the hospital under close observation. (Photo/CFP)

Lyu is believed to be the first ALS sufferer to give birth in China.

She was sent to the delivery room at 8:30 a.m. and the baby was born about an hour later. "Lyu has woken up from the general anesthesia. Her condition is normal, but she is under observation,"

The couple named the baby Luo Guilong, said Lyu's husband Luo Zhongmu.

"'Gui' is another name for my hometown in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and 'long' represents my wife's home province of Gansu," Luo said.

Luo and Lyu met in an online chat room in 2009. He was working at a chemical plant in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, while Lyu was bedridden in her parents' apartment in northwest China's province of Gansu.

They married in 2011 despite objections from Lyu's parents.

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