Gift of Life: Pregnancy registry helps transplant recipients become parents

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- For its 50th anniversary, the Gift of Life organ donor program wants to sign up 50,000 new donors.

Registering takes only a few minutes.

Among those who have benefited from transplants is a young Fairmount mom whose life was changed twice by the Gift of Life organ donor program.

Anna Fischman counts her blessings every day.

A trip to the playground is a special time for Anna, her son, and daughter.

"Can I spin you around?" she asks her daughter on the playground.

Anna was born with a rare genetic disorder.

"At the time, the only way to survive past the age of 2 was with a liver transplant," she recalls.

That liver transplant in Pittsburgh made Anna one of the first American kids to get one.

"I was 13 months old and I never walked. I was severely underweight, and all that really cleared up after my transplant," she notes.

Life was uneventful afterward until she married and wanted children.

Obstetricians, even high-risk ones, don't see many transplant recipients.

"They couldn't tell me if I could get pregnant or not. They weren't sure what the course of my pregnancy would be," she says.

Fortunately, Anna's transplant coordinator told her about the Transplant Pregnancy Registry International, a division of the Gift of Life Institute.

When transplants began, young women were told to avoid pregnancy.

But the late Dr. Vincent Armenti of Jefferson University wondered if a registry tracking those who did would prove otherwise.

"People can have a safe pregnancy after their transplant, as long as they're in good health, their transplant is doing well, and they're on medication safe for pregnancy," says Lisa Coscia, RN, BSN, CCTC, the senior nurse research coordinator

Coscia says information from patients goes into a report available to medical professionals and patients.

"I think we have someone registered from every major continent except Antarctica," she notes.

That data from 5,600 pregnancies flagged drugs to avoid during pregnancy.

And it helped Anna advocate for both a midwife and breastfeeding.

Shortly after the birth of her son Max, "A nurse said, 'You can't breastfeed.' And I very politely said, Actually I can. I've done the research, and I know this is safe."

The registry has also shown that men who received transplants and are on anti-rejection drugs can safely father children.

If you're not a registered organ donor yet, do it now. No need to wait for a driver's license renewal.

It takes just a minute.

Click here: Sign-Up-to-Save-Lives