Pronto Socorro Hospital
Hospital staff failed to realise Yasmin Gomes was still alive when they prepared to take her body to the morgue.

A baby girl pronounced dead at birth 'came back to life' as her body was being prepared to be taken to the morgue.

According to local reports, the body of Yasmin Gomes had been placed in a box and left in the chapel at the hospital in Londrina, south Brazil, by a nurse who "couldn't face sending her to the morgue".

However, when the new-born's grandmother arrived three hours later to take her body to the morgue, she was stunned to see the baby kicking her legs and opening her eyes.

Yasmin's grandmother Elza Silva told Brazil's Globo G1 website that she believed a miracle had taken place.

"At first I couldn't believe it, we couldn't accept that it could happen," she said.

"Then we saw that she was breathing. We hugged each other and started to shout, 'she's alive, she's alive'. It was a miracle."

Records show that Yasmin was alive following a natural birth at the Lincoln Graca hospital, but stopped breathing almost immediately.

She was pronounced dead and a death certificate was issued after doctors unsuccessfully tried to revive her several times.

Yasmin's mother Jenifer da Silva Gomes, 22, recalled the moment she was told her daughter had died.

"My world crashed down right then. It was the most desperate moment when all my dreams were snatched away," she told Brazil's Tanosite website.

Nurse Ana Claudia Oliveira, who accompanied the birth, said she asked for the baby's body to be laid in the hospital chapel because she was a 'little angel'.

"I can assure you, the child was dead. Her pupils didn't respond to light. All her signs pointed to the complete absence of life," Oliveira said.

"I saw it with my own eyes. She was blue all over, completely dead," she added.

Doctor Aurelio Filipak, the medic who battled to save Yasmin and signed her death certificate, said he had never witnessed anything like it in his 20 years in medicine.

"People can make their own conclusions, but only those who were there know what really happened."

Yasmin's family said they plan to change her name to include Victoria - which translates to 'victory' in Portuguese - in light of her 'resurrection'.

"There is no explaining miracles. They happen as God want, " her mother said. "If it was his will that our daughter had died, we would have accepted it, but he brought her back, so there must be a higher purpose in all this."