A woman who was given a new liver, pancreas, stomach and small and large intestines at a Miami hospital in 2007 has delivered a healthy baby girl, believed to be the first known case of a five-organ transplant patient giving birth.

To get into details...

On Wednesday, Fatima Al Ansari of Qatar, 26, expressed her extreme happiness after giving birth by caesarean section February 26.

In fact, on Wednesday she raised the sleeping child at a gathering full of reporters at the same hospital, Jackson Memorial, where she had transplant surgery in 2007.
She explained her feelings in Arabic, while her words got translated by an interpreter that it's a hard feeling to express and the smiling mother said, gently cradling her daughter Alkadi Al Hayal, who had weighed 4 pounds 7 ounces upon arrival. It's the best feeling in the world, she added.

Lying closely in a white blanket and white cap, the child slept quietly in her mother's arms while her parents addressed reporters' questions with her doctors.

A Miracle by itself...

The woman, who lives in Qatar and plans to return home in coming weeks, was there at 19 when she was diagnosed with a blood clot in a major vein to the intestine requiring transplant surgery. Moreover, Dr. Shalih Y. Yaseen, the woman’s obstetrician, said there have been some cases in Europe of births by transplant patients who had two organs but not five.

The doctor with the University of Miami Health System said hat they have searched all medical literature all over the world for any pregnancy that had five multi-transplants and this is the first case to their knowledge.

Dr. Yaseen added that an adult with five transplanted organs who is sufficiently healthy to even consider having a child "is a miracle by itself.

It was not an easy pregnancy...

As a fact, Fatima was forced to conclude a previous pregnancy early on after her diagnosis which made her think she would never be able to get pregnant while she said her husband, Khalifa Al Hayal, who gave her hope to realise her dream and they became parents through in-vitro fertilisation.

In fact, her recent pregnancy was considered to be in high-risk while she was monitored closely by her team of transplant doctors and gynaecologists in Miami and she did not have an infection during her pregnancy, as her doctors had prepared for, apart from facing minor complications including the flu, some bleeding and physical discomfort from her growing baby.

According to Dr. Yaseen, it's not an easy pregnancy to go through. Moreover, one has to make sure the transplant organ is not refused while that the medications are safe to the baby.

Interestingly, experts noted the uniqueness of the case.

To Conclude...

Dr Thomas Fishbein, Executive Director at the Georgetown Transplant Institute, who was not part of Fatima's medical team said that while they have a good success rate to get patients to survive and back to normal, almost none of them go on to bear children. He stressed that he has seen multi-organ patients go through pregnancy, but not five-organ transplants. So this is very good news for the field, while noting the number of patients who have had successful bowel transplants is very small because of difficulty in achieving stable, long-term acceptance of that organ.

To conclude, Fatima's doctors said she is in fact healthy enough to try for a second baby and they said her case also offers some hope to other multi-organ transplant patients.
It's indeed the best feeling in the world for a mother!

(AW:Samrat Biswas)