"The kidneys are crucial for a healthy pregnancy: Among other things, they help the body expand its blood volume and regulate blood pressure to support a growing fetus. During pregnancy, the organs kick into overdrive, ramping up blood-filtration capacity by 50 percent or more to remove harmful waste from parent and fetus."
"Because pregnancy puts so much stress on the organs, people with kidney disease have an increased risk of complications when they become pregnant: preeclampsia (a disorder that can cause dangerously elevated blood pressure), preterm delivery and low-birth-weight babies. The more severe the disease, the greater those risks become."
"Because of that, in past decades doctors had strongly discouraged women with kidney disease from getting pregnant. And Oppenheim, a lawyer who, at the time, lived in Jackson, Miss., was in the final stage of the illness—kidney failure."
Harriett Oppenheim, a lawyer with lupus-induced kidney failure, was initially told pregnancy would be extremely risky. Kidney disease complicates pregnancy because kidneys must increase blood-filtration capacity by 50 percent or more to support a growing fetus while regulating blood pressure and expanding blood volume. Pregnant women with kidney disease face elevated risks of preeclampsia, preterm delivery, and low-birth-weight babies, with severity correlating to increased complications. Historically, doctors strongly discouraged women with kidney disease from becoming pregnant. After receiving a kidney transplant in 2014, Oppenheim's nephrologist provided unexpected encouragement to attempt pregnancy, marking a significant shift in medical approach to kidney disease and reproduction.
#kidney-disease-and-pregnancy #kidney-transplantation #reproductive-health #medical-innovation #autoimmune-disease-management
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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