Woman becomes first to deliver healthy baby girl after heart transplant
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Getting pregnant after having an organ transplant is risky. Patients must take anti-rejection medications for the rest of their lives, and the effects of those are not yet known on a fetus.
So, it was quite the miracle when Juliana Finondo – a heart transplant recipient – became pregnant through in vitro fertilization a decade later, and was able to deliver the baby without any health complications, the Daily Telegraph reported.
"There is no record in the world of a transplant patient who has achieved pregnancy through in vitro fertilization," said Gustavo Leguizamon, head of the high-risk pregnancy center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who treated Finondo.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Finondo, 39, had a heart transplant nearly a decade ago in 1999, and doctors told her getting pregnant would put extra strain on her heart, since women have 40 percent more blood flow during pregnancy.
But Finondo was determined to have a child, and the graphic designer from Buenos Aires tried to conceive naturally. When it didn’t happen the old-fashioned way, doctors came up with a plan for her to wean herself off of the anti-rejection medications and add in fertility drugs – so she could try IVF.
Finondo became pregnant after the first round of IVF, and on Jan. 15, her daughter, Emilia was born.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I was never afraid,” Finondo told the Telegraph.