Baby born while mother undergoes kidney dialysis celebrates his first birthday

Tendai Chisambara, 36, of Broom, Rotherham, gave birth to Zane on January 3 2024 whilst undergoing renal dialysis at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Despite suffering with chronic kidney disease Tendai, who came to the UK from Zimbabwe with her family when she was 14, became unexpectedly pregnant in the spring of 2023.

She said: “I’d been waiting for a transplant so the thought of going on kidney dialysis without any forewarning had been petrifying, but now I was nine and a half weeks pregnant I was strangely calm and I knew I had to go on dialysis for the sake of my baby.”

It is so rare because healthy kidneys must work overtime during pregnancy to keep the blood clean whilst the baby releases wastes into the mother’s blood stream. So, for women on dialysis whose kidneys do not work, pregnancy is even harder on the body, and more frequent dialysis is recommended to keep the blood as clean as possible.

A systematic review of dialysis in pregnancy identified 90 cases worldwide between 2000 to 2008, increasing to 584 pregnancies between 2008 to 2014.

Remarkably Tendai has not needed dialysis since.

She said: “I can’t fault the care I received. Everything went smoothly from beginning to end. The specialist kidney dialysis nurses even calibrated the dialysis machines at Jessop Wing the week before Christmas and in between new year just in case I needed dialysis after giving birth.

"The dialysis team were brilliant as well. They answered all my questions and gave me the reassurance I needed.”

Dr Veena Reddy, Consultant Nephrologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Successful pregnancies in women on dialysis are extremely rare, and these are the first births at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals in dialysis patients in more than a decade.

"The level of care and coordination between several specialist teams including the renal team, dieticians, anaesthetists and the maternal medicine team at Jessop Wing has been phenomenal, and we are hugely proud to be sharing their inspiring stories.”