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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : May 11, 2014 1:24 PM IST
A Chilean woman, who had a heart transplant in 2004, has given birth to a baby at the same hospital in Vina del Mar city where she was operated upon 10 years back, medical officials said.
'There are very few such cases in the world, there can't be more than 30 or 40 women who have had heart transplants and have successfully given birth afterwards,' Ernesto Aranguiz, head of cardiovascular surgery at the Gustavo Fricke Hospital, told media Saturday. Daillana Llanos, 29, is in excellent condition, as is her daughter who was born in her mother's 37th week of pregnancy, he said.
The woman had her heart transplant in November 2004 due to dilated cardiomyopathy, soon after having her first baby girl.
Daillana's heart 'stopped functioning as an effect of giving birth to her daughter', Aranguiz said. 'We received her in very extreme condition but fortunately we had a donor and with that the chance to give her a new heart.'
During her second pregnancy, the patient was under permanent observation at the hospital, said Gabriel Andwanter, head of the fetal medicine unit. Daillana 'was very nervous about the effect of the immunosuppressant drugs', he said. 'Fortunately, there was no problem, an elective caesarean section was planned and the final result has been very satisfactory,' he said.
What does the surgery of heart transplant involve?
The first part of the surgery involves the harvesting of the heart from the donor. A donor is someone who has had a major trauma and is brain dead (the person's brain is irreversibly damaged and cannot be revived). The donor is decided upon by performing a number of blood tests that are aimed at matching the donor and the recipient. The person's body is kept alive with the help of machines that pump blood and oxygen through their body so as to keep their organs viable for transplant. The doctor goes to the hospital where the patient is and with the consent of the person's family, harvests the organs to be donated. These organs are then kept on ice and quickly transported to the patient waiting for the organ. There is only a small window of time that a harvested organ can be used efficiently and in the case of a heart it is approximately six hours after harvest. (Read: Organ donation all your queries answered)
The second part of the surgery is where the patient requiring the organ undergoes a surgery to remove his/her damaged heart. This surgery may take a while depending on whether the person has had previous heart surgeries. Previous surgeries increase the amount of scar tissue that forms around the heart which makes it difficult for the surgeon to remove the heart.
During the removal of the damaged heart and replacement of the new heart the patient is put on a machine called a bypass machine that helps in circulating blood and oxygen throughout the patient's body.
Once the damaged heart is removed the third part of the surgery begins. Here, the surgeon places the new heart inside the body of the patient and connects the large blood vessels entering and leaving the heart.
In uncomplicated surgeries the recipient of a donor heart can leave the hospital after about one to two weeks of stay at the hospital.
With inputs from IANS
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