Mum heartbroken after tiny newborn baby placed on transplant list after being diagnosed with rare disease
The mum of a tiny baby on the transplant list is desperately hoping a donor will be found to save her little girl's life.
Five-month-old Helin Dinler now needs a liver donor or she will not see her second birthday. The newborn was diagnosed with Biliary Atresia - a rare liver disease that blocks the bile ducts - shortly after birth.
Her heartbroken mum Anna Shushura, from Stirling, said doctors realised something was wrong when her daughter, who was born weighing a healthy 9lbs, began losing weight.
After numerous scans and tests, doctors diagnosed little Helin with the rare condition, leaving her parents devastated as they were told without a successful liver transplant, Helin would not survive.
Biliary atresia is a condition in infants in which the bile ducts outside and inside the liver are scarred and blocked. Bile can't flow into the intestine, so bile builds up in the liver and damages it.
At six-weeks-old, she underwent surgery on her liver at Leeds Children's Hospital. Despite the family's best hopes, the operation was unsuccessful. So now, in an effort to dave the newborn, her devastated parents have issued a desperate public appeal in an effort to find a liver donor.
Mum-of-two Anna, 36, told the Record: "Helin's diagnosis was heartbreaking. I had a normal pregnancy and when she was born she seemed healthy and looked perfect.
"We couldn't believe it when doctors told us she was so poorly. We were in shock."
She continued: "She wasn't putting on weight and we began to worry. Our health visitor sent us to the hospital for blood tests.
"At first it wasn't discovered but then when she still weighed the same at her next appointment the tests were repeated. It was after this that they sent Helin for an ultrasound, which discovered the disease."
Helin has now been in hospital for the last two months and the family have been told she will not be able to leave until she receives the life-saving transplant.
Despite live organ donations having the greatest chances when they come from close family members, tragically her whole family, including mum Anna, dad Ozkan and her nine-year-old sister Veronika, do not fit the requirements for organ donation.
They are now appealing for a life saving match to come forward.
She added: "We are still searching for her life saver. We have received several applications from people wanting to help and doctors are hoping that one of them is a match, but at the moment we are not certain.
"She needs the surgery before her first birthday. We are hoping for a miracle.
"The waiting and not knowing is so tough on all of us. I am with Helin down in Leeds on my own and her sister and dad are home in Scotland. It is so hard for the family to be apart.
"We want her to get healthy and be able to go home where she belongs."
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