Doctors in UK successfully carried out the first organ transplant from a dead baby.
The baby girl suffered from intense oxygen starvation and irreparable brain damages in the womb. The girl, who was about 6.6 pound (3 Kg), was a premature baby.
This is the first time in the history of neonatal care that doctors performed an operation on a new born child. They utilized the kidney and liver of a baby girl who died just six days after birth.
Gaurav Atreja, a doctor at Hammersmith Hospital informs that the main aim of the doctors is to save the life of the baby girl. They even cooled down the body of the baby for 72 hours in order to give her a new life but in vain. It was extremely difficult for the baby girl to breathe without ventilator.
Health professions were already aware of the fact that new born babies are capable of organ donation. However, they never performed any such kind of organ transplant operation. They carried out the operation with a hope that the organ donation of new born babies can save lives of numerous people.
They successfully transplanted the kidney of the baby into a renal failure patient. However, the liver is donated to a second patient who was at a critical stage of liver failure.
Nevertheless, doctors refused to disclose the names of the baby’s family and patients.
Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health would probably release new guidelines regarding the approach of organ donation.