Woman without pituitary gland gives birth to healthy baby

MADURAI: A 25-year-old woman, whose pituitary gland had been removed through surgery following detection of a tumour, has given birth to a girl child after conceiving through intra-uterine insemination at a city hospital.

Describing it as a 'rarest of the rare case', Dr V Sunitha of Vikram Hospital said that a patient who had undergone pituitary tumour surgery, conceiving and having a normal gestation and delivering a healthy baby was a rarity.

As the woman's pituitary gland had been removed in 2002, she had 'hypopituitarism' and was on steroid and thryroxine tablets as replacement.

Such patients do not conceive because their ovarian hormones are not produced optimally to fertilise the eggs and to maintain the pregnancy. Even if they become pregnant, there would be miscarriages, pre-term labour, growth restriction of the foetus and intra-uterine death of the baby.

The woman who came to the hospital in October, 2006, was also not having menstrual periods.
   
She was subjected to hormonal checks and put to Periodical Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin Injection and Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI), Sunitha said.
   
She conceived during the second cycle of IUI and was monitored closely during her pregnancy by a series of ultrasound scans and hormone assays.

Growth restriction and decrease in the amniotic fluid content were noticed around 24th week.

"However, after 37 weeks, an elective caesarean section was done and she delivered a normal baby girl weighing 2.3 kg last week. Now both baby and mother are fine," Sunitha said.