Can I become pregnant after kidney transplantation?

I must say I was not surprised when I faced this question for the first time. "By all means, yes". We did the transplant for the person to lead a normal life. And sex and pregnancy are a part of normal life. But like everything after transplantation, be informed and make careful choices.

Here are the advices for you.

1. The pregnancy is a high risk pregnancy and must be treated as such from the time you become pregnant. Follow up during the pregnancy must be at short and regular intervals of 2 weeks. This visit should positively include your kidney doctor or the transplant team to ensure that the transplant kidney is working well. You must learn to accept that pregnancy outcomes may no the the same as non transplant patients
2. Never have an unplanned pregnancy. The transplant team will work with you to take you off medications that can potentially harm your baby. The key medication is mycophenolate or MMF or Cellcept.
3. Wait till your renal function is stable (Creatinine < 1.3) and also ensure that your proteinuria is < 1 g/ day.
4. Change MMF to Azathioprine preemptively and make sure that your renal function remains stable and there are no complications from the medications.
5. If you happened to be on sirolimus or everolimus, it needs to be stopped.
6. More frequent scans during the pregnancy may be needed to monitor fetal growth
7. You are advised not to breast feed the baby after delivery as medications may pass to the baby through the breast milk. The evidence of actual injury is very limited but current consensus opinion is to avoid breast feeding as much as possible.