Baby with One Kidney

hi my name is S., i have a 4 yr old daughter who was born with one kidney. also found out in utero. she has not had any real problems. when she got a cold (as an infant) she would refuse to drink so she would get dehydrated. she spent time in the hospital till they got her elecrolites back up. but other than that she is fine. she has no restrictions except she cant play contact sports. she hasnt been in the hospital in a year and a half. she is much better when she has a cold. just tell ur friend to give the baby lots of fluids, and she or he will be fine. if she has any questions u or her can email me at ____@____.com

1 mom found this helpful

My daughter, now 2, only has one functioning kidney. She is otherwise normal, but we have to watch her very carefully for urinary tract infections so that her one kidney is not damaged. She had an infection once and was treated in the hospital with antibiotics. She recovered well and is very healthy. And she is now on daily antibiotics until she's potty-trained, just as a precuation.

When your friend's baby is born, she should make sure that the baby sees a nephrologist or urologist as soon as possible, preferably at a children's hospital if possible. This way, the condition can be monitored just in case something should come up. Also, they may want to prescribe medication for her newborn to prevent any infections from occuring.

I can't tell you much about this but I can tell you I have a girlfriend who was born with only one kidney and she is a wonerderful woman now with a 2 yr old son. Having a child was a challenge for her however they have one wonderful little boy who was born 10 weeks earlier and does have some problem but she lives a full life.

My friend was born with one kidney and he hasnt had any problems! You only need one kidney to live. I dont know what kind of problems there could be

My cousin had a baby a year and a half ago to a baby girl with just one kidney. So far she has had no problems at all

My brother has lived with one kidney since birth. He is 46 yrs old.
S. C

This may or may-not be of help to you, but I did see a program just like your on the Learning Channel (the baby channel,Discovery health, one of these channels in which her OB/GYN & PED Surgeon did surgery on the baby while it was in mom's womb. (i forget how old but the baby was tiny, you could barely see her fingers when they were manuvering the fetus around in the womb, to be positioned for surgery.

Also I was told to tell you, ask your Doc, OB/GYN or MID-WIFE, about stem cell. They could use some of the fetus stem cell to grow a new kidney.(but you'd get info on exactly how this would work & if it would benefit the baby & your-self. ( If your gettin a feeling like one of the Doctor's aren't being straight with you about the info, ask somebody else or go to learning channel & look up Stem Cell. What ever you choose to do, I wish you & the baby well.
My name is S. mother of 5.

My grandmother-in-law just learned that she only has 1 kidney maybe only 2-3 years ago. She is about 78 years old and never even knew about it since there wasn't ultrasound when she was a baby. She wasn't having a kidney issue - I don't remember why she was having tests done actually, but they came upon the single kidney by accident and it was perfectly healthy. She definitely was having the ultrasound or whatever test for some reason unrelated to her kidney.

Someone else mentioned that you can live with only 1 kiney - this is obviously true. The only concern I can think of is that should something happen to that one kidney to damage it, she will not have the possibility that the second is still healthy and functional and may be more likely to require a transplant. Provided she lives a healthy lifestyle and isn't in some kind of accident that physically damages that kidney, she will most likely never have any consequences to having just 1. On the flip side, an illness damaging the kidney isn't likely to affect just one so a person with 2 kidneys that develops a serious illness affecting the kidneys may be just as likely to need a transplant to recover.

I have a friend whose baby either only had one kidney, or had to get one out shortly after delivery. He is doing just fine.

They probably did an amniocentesis because some conditions give rise to having one kidney, and sometimes it's just a very common birth defect with no other problems. You need only one kidney to live. If it's just that the baby has the one kidney (and that's a very, very common birth issue), there shouldn't be any complications.

I have family members who have 1 kidney, the problems for this family member arised when he was an adult. diet will help but if not caught it could lead to having dialisis later also high blood pressure but because they found uot eairly enough they can fix the situation and possibly be on the waiting list for a second kidney.

Hi Jamie my brother too only has one kidney.Hes 34