Pakistani woman donates liver to save infant son

NEW YORK-

A Pakistani woman risked her own life to save her infant son with the help of a doctor at a hospital, according to media reports.

According to reports, Rabia Anjum, who lives with her husband Zuhaib in Bronx, New York, donated a segment of her liver to her eight-month-old son, Jahanzaib, in December after his own organ was failing from a rare congenital disease.

“I didn’t have a choice,” the courageous 26-year-old mother said.

“I had to be brave for my son.”

Jahanzaib’s suffered from a hereditary disease that causes rapid liver failure. It affects only one in 100,000 children, said the reports.

To complicate matters, the baby was born with an abnormality in which where the organs are on opposite sides of the body. Doctors at Montefiore’s Moses campus admitted the infant and placed him on a children’s transplant list.

But the longer the couple waited for a liver for Jahanzaib, the worse he got – his eyes were jaundiced and he was crying yellow tears.

The couple decided not to wait any longer – little Jahanzaib was failing fast and Rabia was a perfect match, though donating part of her liver to her son meant she would spend weeks recovering, leaving the primary caretaking to her husband.

“It was the worst time in my life,” he said, referring Dec 4, the day his wife and son were both on the operating table.

Both surgeries went well, and Jahanzaib was discharged two weeks later.