A Wayne woman is the first known heart transplant recipient in the world to give birth to healthy twins, her ecstatic doctors said Thursday.
The joy of the physicians at what they call a true miracle, however, does not come close to matching that of the new parents
“I’m so happy to have them home,” Stefania De Mayo, 29, said as she cradled Melania and Natalia.
The identical twin girls were born at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center on Dec. 29, only 16 months after she received a donated heart.
“As you can see, they’re perfect; I mean perfect,” said their father, Rich De Mayo, 35. He beamed at the tiny infants, who were born a minute apart and six weeks prematurely.
There have been 39 reported cases of pregnancies after heart transplants, but De Mayos’ doctors believe she is the first woman with a donor heart to bear twins. Pregnancy is difficult for organ-transplant patients because of the stress it puts on the body, and some of the drugs the patients take to prevent rejection of the organ can be harmful to fetuses.
Melania, who weighed in at 4 pounds 2 ounces at birth and came home two weeks later, “is now pushing 7 pounds,” her proud father said. Her sister, Natalia, who came home Tuesday after bowel surgery, now weighs 4 pounds 6 ounces, up from a tiny 2 pounds 13 ounces at birth.
Stefania De Mayo became seriously ill on her honeymoon and was treated erroneously for two years for a lung ailment.
Three years ago she was correctly diagnosed as having restrictive cardiomyopathy, a condition that causes stiffening of the heart muscle and leads to heart failure.
She spent six months at home on intravenous fluids; then waited two more months in the hospital, until the heart transplant in August 2008.
The heart beating in her slim and vibrant frame came from Sean Clegg, a 14-year-old boy who was killed by a car while riding his bike near his home in Tabernacle Township, Burlington County.
“I think every day about Sean,” she said.
His photo is on the De Mayo’s living room wall.
“I can’t wait to see the babies,” Sean’s mother, Gail Clegg, said from Tabernacle on Thursday.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable, it’s a miracle, a miracle,” she said.
Clegg said she will attend a shower for the identical twins on Saturday.
“Sean said on his Facebook page the day before he died that he wanted to make his mark on the world, whether he lived or died,” Stefania said.
She believes Sean is watching over her babies. “He’ll be part of our lives forever,” Rich De Mayo said.
The twin girls slept peacefully Thursday in their parents’ arms, oblivious to the excited yapping of Bentley and Dolce, the De Mayo’s two Yorkies, who outweigh the new arrivals.
The birth of the twins was even more miraculous because doctors helped them survive an extremely rare and potentially fatal complication in the womb, not related to the transplant. Doctors discovered an unequal flow of blood and nutrients to the individual fetuses, because their mother’s placenta had not divided in two parts, as it normally should for twins from the same egg. Surgeons used a laser to fix the potentially fatal problem in utero, said Dr. Munir Nazir.
“One baby becomes a [nutrient] donor twin and the other becomes a recipient,” said Nazir, director of maternal and fetal medicine and Newark Beth Israel, who monitored their progress after surgery at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “So you have double jeopardy to the fetuses: one is overgrown, and the other under-grown and anemic.”
A transplanted heart does not have nerve connections, and does not give the normal signals for hypertension or hemorrhaging, so Stefania’s blood pressure had to be monitored through chemical hormone levels, said Dr. David Baran, transplant cardiologist at Newark Beth Israel.
There is also a risk that her body would reject the donated heart, Baran said. Fortunately for her, the hospital has the only clinical trial of a single immunosuppressive drug, Prograf, which is less likely to cause birth defects, he said.
Nazir said he is “absolutely thrilled” by the birth.
“This is something, in more than 25 years of managing high-risk pregnancies, you just never will forget, especially when the outcome is so great,” he said. “This is the best any physician can dream for.”
One thing the De Mayos are sure of, Stefania said, “Sean is watching over them.”
“He’ll be part of our lives forever,” Rich said.
WOW, this is a perfect example why we should all register to be an organ donor; please do so today!
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