Hospitals in countries such as the UK and the US carry out a few transplants each year where kidneys are taken from babies who died during birth. However, there have been calls to make this a wider practice
By Clare Wilson
18 September 2023
Donating organs such as kidneys is usually only possible when a donor is on life support and their condition is unsurvivable, which has resulted in a long organ waiting list
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Kidneys from babies who die during or soon after birth are being overlooked for transplantation into children and adults, as it is a difficult topic to broach with bereaved parents, according to doctors.
Such transplants are performed in some nations, including the UK and the US, but only a few times a year per country. There were calls for hospitals to make wider use of the practice at the European Society for Organ Transplantation Congress in Greece last week. “We have to recognise that this very rare and valuable resource could be used to save lives,” says Dai Nghiem at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Although newborn babies’ kidneys are smaller than those of an adult, they grow quickly when put into a child or adult. Due to their small size, their kidneys are removed as a pair and transplanted into a recipient next to each other on one side of their body. With adult donors, normally only one kidney is transplanted, which is usually sufficient.
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A pair of kidneys from a newborn baby usually grow big enough to do the work of one adult kidney within three months.
Kidneys are one of the most commonly transplanted organs and can save the lives of people with kidney failure, but there aren’t enough donor organs available for everyone who needs them, with thousands of people worldwide dying each year while on a waiting list.
This is because organ donation is only possible in a small subset of deaths, such as after a sudden stroke or severe physical injury that leaves someone in intensive care and when it becomes apparent that their injuries are unsurvivable.