Doctors in the UK have performed the first organ transplants from a new born in the country.
In what is being called a milestone in neonatal care, a six-day-old baby girl’s kidneys and liver cells were given to two separate recipients after her heart stopped beating.
The baby girl suffered severe oxygen starvation and massive brain damage in the womb that left her completely unresponsive and unable to move when she was delivered at term by emergency caesarean section.
A significant proportion of new-borns who die in neonatal units could be potential organ donors, and could therefore save the lives of other sick patients, but current guidelines make it very difficult for donors to be identified.
New guidelines from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health are expected shortly, and these should help to standardise an approach to organ donation among new-borns, the doctors said.
The donation involved the kidneys, which were transplanted into a patient with renal failure, and liver cells (hepatocytes), which were transfused into a further recipient.
The donor was a girl born at term after an emergency caesarean section in the neonatal unit of Hammersmith Hospital, London.
She weighed just over three kg, but was very sick, and it became clear that her brain had been starved of oxygen for a period during the pregnancy.
Treatment made no difference, and repeated examinations showed that she was unable to make any spontaneous movement, did not respond to any stimuli, and had fixed and dilated pupils.
The parents and clinicians involved in her care discussed the possibility of organ donation, when it became clear that she would not survive.
The parents then gave their consent for their daughter’s kidneys and liver cells to be used for the benefit of other sick patients.
Six days after she was born, and with death confirmed, these tissues were harvested, in a complicated operation.
