Healing of Elizabeth Comparini Arcolino

At 16 weeks of pregnancy, complete placental rupture caused total loss of amniotic fluid. Physicians considered fetal survival impossible. After praying for Gianna's intercession, the pregnancy continued to term. Elizabeth delivered a healthy girl by C-section; the child was named Gianna Maria.

Elizabeth Comparini Arcolino was a Brazilian woman who, in 2000, was sixteen weeks pregnant when she sustained a complete rupture of her placenta with total loss of amniotic fluid. The amniotic fluid that surrounds a developing fetus is not simply protective — it is essential to fetal development. Without it, the lungs cannot develop properly, the fetus cannot move or grow normally, and the pregnancy cannot continue. At sixteen weeks, the fetus is far too young to survive outside the womb. Her physicians told her the child had no chance of survival.

Elizabeth prayed for the intercession of Blessed Gianna Beretta Molla, who had died in 1962 choosing her child's life over her own safety. Gianna was at that time beatified, and her cause for canonization was active.

The pregnancy continued. Contrary to what her physicians had said was impossible, Elizabeth carried the child to term. She delivered a healthy baby girl by caesarean section. The child was named Gianna Maria, after the blessed whose intercession her mother had sought. Neither the child's survival nor the continuation of a pregnancy after complete loss of amniotic fluid at sixteen weeks could be explained by her medical team.

The case was submitted to the Vatican. The Holy See's medical board reviewed it and declared the outcome medically inexplicable. It was accepted as the miracle for Gianna's canonization.

Gianna Beretta Molla was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 16, 2004. Her husband Pietro and her daughter Gianna Emanuela — a physician herself — were present at the ceremony in Rome.