A pregnant woman in Taiwan successfully went through a liver transplant surgery and gave birth to a girl months later, the first such case on the island, the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou recently announced.
The woman surnamed Mou, 34, was a carrier of hepatitis B virus. In March 2018, she went to the hospital as she developed symptoms of poor appetite and vomiting after getting pregnant and did not see improvement, according to the hospital.
Doctors unexpectedly found abnormalities with her liver functions and icteric index, which severely threatened her life.
Under the advice of the doctors, Mou went through a liver transplant surgery at the hospital in May 2018 and left hospital three weeks later. She gave birth to a girl in November last year.
Lee Wei-chen, director of the hospital's organ transplant center, said this is Taiwan's first liver transplant surgery during pregnancy. "Such surgeries are rare worldwide because doctors have to keep the heartbeats and blood pressure of the fetus stable," he said.
