A miracle baby girl born without kidneys has defied all odds.
Emmie Hope Mahoney was born without vital organs in March 2021 and her mother, Andi Mahoney, was told her daughter would never survive.
But after donating one of her own kidneys shortly after birth, Mrs Mahoney now has a prosperous and healthy two-year-old girl.
Mrs. Mahoney, from Jacksonville, Floridahad a normal pregnancy until her 20-week scan in November 2020 revealed that her baby had bilateral renal agenesis, a condition in which the kidneys never develop.
The condition occurs in one of about 4,500 live births in the US. More than 40 percent of babies with the condition will be stillborn, and if they are born alive, most will live only a handful of hours.
Emmie Hope Mahoney was born without vital organs in March 2021 and her mother, Andi Mahoney, was told her daughter would never survive
When it was time to give birth, the doctors were on standby to give baby Emmie oxygen. She had to go straight to the operating room
But Mrs Mahoney was determined her daughter would make it.
Shortly after her scan, Ms. Mahoney sought out a specialist and found Dr. Rueben Quintero, of the Fetal Institute in Miami, and made the six-hour drive from Jacksonville to Miami.
He said: ‘Only about 0.013 percent of cases in America (are diagnosed each year). The reason it is impossible to survive the condition is because the baby has no fluids. Because they don’t have a kidney to urinate, they don’t swallow liquids as they should.’
Doctors don’t know what causes the condition, but a quarter of cases have a genetic component.
Bilateral renal agenesis, also known as Potter syndrome, also prevents the development of the baby’s lungs. Therefore, Mrs. Mahoney had to receive fluid infusions for the baby for ten weeks while she was still pregnant.
Mrs. Mahoney told USA today: ‘I kept traveling to Miami to get more, to keep Emmie alive. My baby needed fluid to breathe. By the time I reached the 34 week mark, I had an unnatural break.”
The expectant mother found a hospital in Stanford, California that had previously dealt with the birth of babies with bilateral renal agenesis.
Ms Mahoney said: ‘I boarded a flight from Jacksonville to California with my membranes ruptured.
“I wanted to go somewhere where I could deliver my Emmie. They also gave me hope that she would live.”
A ruptured membrane is the rupture of the amniotic sac before labor begins.
Once the bag breaks, there is an increased risk of infection.
When the time came to give birth, the doctors were ready to give baby Emmie oxygen and take her straight to the operating room.
Mrs Mahoney said: ‘I only met her after she had an operation. I didn’t know if she would survive after the first day. It was a lot of waiting and praying.”
Emmie’s lungs were underdeveloped and she urgently needed a kidney.
Although people are born with two kidneys, they can live a completely healthy life with one kidney.
The kidneys are needed to filter waste from the body and regulate the body’s fluid balance.
Mrs. Mahoney was able to donate a kidney to her daughter on July 25, 2023. She said: ‘I got the best news of my life when I found out we had the same blood types and I was approved for the operation.
‘I didn’t think twice. I knew I was donating my kidney to Emmie.’
She wasn’t able to leave the hospital until she was six months old, and even then she had to return to the hospital in California to remain on dialysis — a treatment that helps the body remove extra fluid and waste products from the blood. .
This allowed her to survive until she received her mother’s transplant.
Her family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to be close to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which meant she could do two years of outpatient dialysis at home.
She continued on dialysis until she was two and a half years old.
