Kidney dialysis patient Alison Kirk gives birth to baby daughter following rare pregnancy
Last updated 12/14/2011 9:08:18 AM
Kidney dialysis patient Alison Kirk gives birth to baby daughter following rare pregnancy
After one of the rarest pregnancies in the UK, brave new mother Alison Kirk is celebrating her premature daughter Gracie Mae on the Neonatal Unit at Liverpool Women's Hospital.
She has become one of only a handful of women in Britain to have had a successful pregnancy while on kidney dialysis.
Alison, 28, who has suffered kidney disease since she was three years old, risked her life to fulfil her longing to have a child. After a kidney transplant at 12 failed, she was warned from an early age that she would never have children and to try would result in miscarriage and put her life in danger. But she still dreamed of motherhood and went through six hours of dialysis for six days a week throughout her pregnancy to give herself and her unborn child the best possible chance.
It was all worthwhile after her daughter was delivered safely by caesarean section at Liverpool Women's after Alison had a massive bleed at 30 weeks and four days. She and her partner, Michael Scott, 25, say that the birth would never have been possible but for amazing skill and dedication of teams at Liverpool Women's and the Renal Department of the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals who worked in partnership to get her safely through her pregnancy.
"They were all so amazing and so caring. Gracie Mae is only here because of them," said Alison. Not only is she one of the few women in the UK to have a successful pregnancy while on kidney dialysis. She is one of only a very small number worldwide.
Mr Steve Walkinshaw, her Consultant in Maternity and Fetal Medicine at Liverpool Women's, who liaised with her Consultant Nephrologist, Dr John Alexander, said: "A successful pregnancy in women treated with renal dialysis is rare. I have never come across one before during my 25 years' experience."
Between 2002 and 2008, only 90 pregnancies worldwide were reported. Outcomes have improved with better multidisciplinary care between kidney specialists, obstetricians and anaesthetists but even now only 50-75 per cent of pregnancies are successful with almost all babies born prematurely.
"Liverpool Women's and the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen hospitals established a combined obstetric renal clinic some years ago to co-ordinate the care of these and other women with complex kidney problems. Alison represented a real challenge to the team with her need for very frequent dialysis with the Royal and the presence of a condition called placenta praevia which carries a risk of massive bleeding during pregnancy.
"The combination of risks undoubtedly put Alison's life in danger and meant she had to spend a lot of the final weeks of her pregnancy inour hospital. She is a very brave woman. The successful outcome here is a testament to the care provided by a number of doctors, nurses and midwives at both hospitals and shows what can be achieved in modern maternal medicine."
Another risk factor for Alison was the fact that she became pregnant in 2004 but went into premature labour at 24 weeks with her son, Jack, in February, 2005. Sadly he lived for only 12 hours. Alison was born with a rare condition called Cystinosis which affects most of the body's organs including the kidneys.
She has been on medication and then dialysis three times a week since the age of 11. She had a transplant in 1996 when she was 12 but this failed in 2000 and she has been back on dialysis and on the transplant lost since then. Now her daughter has been born, she will go back on the transplant list having been taken off it while she was pregnant.