A 30-year-old Idaho resident has made medical history as only the fourth woman in the world to give birth following a kidney-pancreas transplant and the first not to reject her transplanted organs following birth of the baby, say transplant officials at LDS Hospital.
In fact, seven days after giving birth, Susan Jessop on Tuesday was scheduled to be released from the Salt Lake hospital where just 11 months ago she received the donated organs for the treatment of end-stage renal disease and diabetes.Misti Jessop, who was delivered by Caesarean section on Jan. 3 - eight weeks premature and weighing only 2 pounds 11 ounces - will continue to be hospitalized for several weeks.
But hospital officials said mother and daughter are both doing miraculously well.
"The main danger is the rejection of the transplanted organs. Patients who have delivered have gone on to reject their organs almost immediately after delivery and are on dialysis and insulin," said Mary Aloia, transplant coordinator. "What that's due to, I don't think anyone really knows. There just isn't enough information available yet to determine why that has happened."
Although high blood pressure continues to be a problem, Aloia said Susan Jessop has shown no signs of rejection and remains insulin-free. But she will continue to be monitored closely for the next month.
"We are cautiously optimistic that she is going to continue to do well," Aloia said.
Becoming parents were in the dreams, but not in the plans, of Wendell and Susan Jessop of Paul, Idaho, who married just six weeks before she underwent transplant surgery at LDS Hospital in February last year.
The facility is the only Utah hospital that does kidney-pancreas transplants. Since 1986, 31 have been performed. Sixty percent of the patients are off insulin with good kidney function.
"Transplanted organs are not a cure for diabetes because any patient who receives a transplant can go on to reject. They would become a diabetic again. It's only therapy for diabetes, not a cure," Aloia said.
Following Jessop's successful surgery, physicians strongly cautioned her against becoming pregnant because of its potential danger to both her and the baby. Because so few transplant patients have given birth, physicians still do not know the effect anti-rejection drugs have on a fetus.
Jessop says she and her husband heeded physicians' advice; the pregnancy wasn't a conscious decision.
"It was an accident. I was on the pill," said Jessop, who readily admits to not knowing she was pregnant until she was almost four months along. Tighter-than-normal jeans, fatigue and finally high blood pressure were indications that something was wrong.
When blood tests confirmed the "problem" was pregnancy, Jessop was again informed of the risks.
"I think if she had been in a different program, they would have told her there was no other alternative but to have an abortion," Aloia said. "At LDS Hospital she was given the option."
For Jessop, there was no option.
"That (abortion) is totally against my beliefs. I told doctors that we would just take it a day at a time. If the time comes that it's either me or the transplants, or the baby or the transplants, then we will deal with it," she told them. "Until then, we will just take each day as it comes."
A picture of Misti's first ultrasound gave her constant reassurance. The baby's thumb is sticking up like she is saying, "Thumbs up, Mom."
"I think there is a reason that I was supposed to have this baby or I wouldn't have gotten pregnant. Just even one - that's more than I ever expected," she said. "When this came up, I knew I couldn't not have the baby - or at least try. I'll probably never, never get pregnant again."
Alois confirmed that Jessop's severe diabetes and poor kidney function would have prohibited her from becoming pregnant before the transplant.
"Without someone giving Susan the miracle of life, she couldn't have had this miracle of life," the specialist said.