Healthy baby for a hemodialysis patient at CHC

Twenty-eight-year-old Maria Borja made history when she gave birth to her daughter Corina Olympia Borja two-and-a-half weeks ago at the Commonwealth Health Center.

Women who are undergoing hemodialysis and are still in their child bearing age like Ms. Borja have very slim chance of having a baby. In fact, the statistical probability is 1 out of 200.
But miracles do happen.

Doctors and hospital staff kept a close watch at Ms. Borja during her 37 weeks of pregnancy. The hospital’s nutritionist, gynecologist and nephrologist all worked together to make sure that she would successfully carry out a full term pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby without any major medical complication.

“She is an extremely rare case. I don’t think we will ever see one here again maybe in the next 25 years or so,” said Dr. Syed Abidi, nephrologist.

Baby Corina is the first in the Pacific Island area and the sixth listed in the United States to have been born by a mother undergoing hemodialysis.

Ms. Borja undergoes hemodialysis three times a week, four hours per session for close to five years now. When she became pregnant, the doctors increased her dialysis treatment to six times a week, four hours per session.

“When you are taking care of two lives, you have to provide an atmosphere inside the body very close to the time when both of your kidneys are still functioning,” said Dr. Abidi. Doctors also changed Ms. Borja’s diet and maintained her hemoglobin at an acceptable range.

The American Registry of Hemodialysis Patients has so far recorded 184 pregnant women who are on hemodialysis. Out of this, 40 percent are live births. Of the live births, 84 percent are premature. Only 12 percent are full term births.

Women who get pregnant while undergoing hemodialysis usually have miscarriage, therapeutic or spontaneous abortion sometimes due to uncontrolled blood pressure or other factors, said Dr. Abidi. To prevent this, there has to be an aggressive monitoring by the gynecologist and nephrologist to make sure that blood pressure is under control.

The success of Ms. Borja’s pregnancy also proves that the efficient, state-of-the-art hemodialysis program of CHC is comparable to the US mainland.

“We are happy to share this story to the community. This would not have happened without the full cooperation of the doctors and the staff who took care of the mother,” said Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez.

The public health chief, however, emphasized that it is still important for people to be conscious of their health practices so that they do not have to go through hemodialysis treatment.