Doctors in Mumbai pull off a delicate transplant surgery on a 9-month-old (Representational)
Nine- month-old Kavya Raut got a new lease of life after a successful liver transplant at a hospital in Mumbai. The baby is the youngest in the country to undergo a transplant surgery.
A team led by Dr Anurag Shrimal, a liver transplant surgeon, pulled off the difficult surgery at Mumbai Wockhardt Hospital on Thursday, and baby Kavya is now stable said his doctors. His mother Nisha Raut donated small part of her liver, which was transplanted with minimum blood loss said the doctors. Avoiding blood loss was the biggest challenge said the surgeons as the baby was too weak.
Kavya's father, Vivek Raut is an idol painter who is popular for his Ganesha statues. "We are grateful to the doctors as well as the social workers who helped us cure our son. We had almost finished most of our savings when they stepped in," Mr Raut told news agency ANI.
Kavya can now lead a normal life said his doctors.
Baby Kavya's troubles started soon after birth after he was diagnosed with Biliary Atresia, a condition where he did not have a duct to carry the bile from the liver to his intestines. When he was just two months old, he underwent a major surgery called Portoenterostomy, to allow the drainage of bile.
The surgery wasn't successful and Kavya ended up with a permanent liver damage; a disease called Cirrhosis of the liver. The baby's growth was severely stunted and he weighed only a little over five kilos. He developed life threatening jaundice and fluid collected in his belly.
Before Kavya, a 13-month-old from Ahmedabad was the youngest to undergo a liver transplant surgery at a Mumbai hospital.