Young mum Grace Anslow lovingly cradles the baby that she defied the medical odds to deliver. 

For Grace discovered she was pregnant shortly after being diagnosed with kidney disease.

And, despite requiring dialysis treatment on a daily basis, she was still able to give birth to a healthy, bouncing baby girl at the end of her full-term pregnancy.

Grace, aged 18, from Lozells, Birmingham, was under the care of kidney consultant Dr Clara Day at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) and Dr Ellen Knox at the neighbouring Birmingham Women’s Hospital, before giving birth to baby Ava, weighing 6lbs 7oz, at the Women’s on 17 April 2013.

Dr Day said: “Grace presented out of the blue last July with kidney failure and went straight on to dialysis. Then she found out she was pregnant, which is pretty rare.

“Unfortunately, when patients have kidney disease their fertility is reduced, so becoming pregnant becomes much more difficult. But as well as being much less likely to become pregnant, the pregnancy itself can also be difficult.

“Often, when you are a dialysis patient, you can have a lot of complications in pregnancy, such as having a very small baby and giving birth prematurely.

“But because Grace dialysed for four hours, six days a week instead of the normal three, she ended up with a normal-sized baby who was born full-term. This is very rare.”

Grace, who was having peritoneal dialysis at home before commencing haemodialysis at QEHB last December, first noticed something was wrong last summer.

She said: “I had all bruises on my legs which I thought was just an allergic reaction. My GP referred me to the City Hospital and they took me straight to the QE.

“They had the blood results from the doctors, so they knew there was a problem, but I didn’t take it in when they told me I had end stage kidney failure. I didn’t feel ill. In fact, it’s only when it sunk in that I started to feel ill.

“I was being dialysed and then I got pregnant. They told me there was a risk of premature birth, preeclampsia, and also the baby having kidney problems. That made it all sound really scary, but I was closely monitored at the hospital all the time through the pregnancy, and the baby was fine.

”Maybe because I am younger my body could take it better and that’s why I was able to go full-term. I was on dialysis six days a week, three days for me and three for Ava. They were cleaning her blood as well as mine to make sure she was OK during the pregnancy.”

Grace, who attended St Albans School in Highgate before studying at the former Birmingham College of Food, was working as a hotel room attendant at the time she became ill.

She is now looking confidently to the future, adding: “Hopefully, I will be able to get a kidney transplant and then go back to work.”

Dr Day said the successful outcome for Grace was due to her sticking to a very tiring dialysis regime with many hospital visits, and the supporting efforts of staff at both QEHB and the Women’s Hospital, including its antenatal day assessment unit.

She added: “The team on 301 Dialysis Unit worked extremely hard to support and encourage her and give her the best care and best prospects for a full-term pregnancy. She was also watched very carefully in a highly specialised antenatal joint obstetric renal clinic with the Women’s Hospital for women who are pregnant with kidney disease.

“The fact that she managed to do well and have a healthy, good-sized baby was the result of an excellent team effort involving Grace, the staff on Ward 301 here and at the Women’s.”