A Mumbai woman donated a part of her liver to save the life of her five-year-old daughter and cure her of liver and associated lung failure, doctors said on Wednesday. Doctors at Medanta - The Medicity in the National Capital Region (NCR) called the rare liver transplant the first in the country. The transplant was performed on Paridhi Sethi, after her mother Mamta Sethi, 40, consented to donate 20 per cent of her own liver. Neelam Mohan, Medanta's director of Children's Liver Diseases and Transplantation, said Paridhi suffered from jaundice and its complications since birth. She was operated upon when she was barely 10 months old, but the operation was not successful.

The condition of the Borivali resident studying in Class 1 deteriorated with life-threatening liver infections and lung complications, leading to eight prolonged bouts of hospitalisation.

"My husband Nitin and I had given up all hopes of getting Paridhi well after doctors in Mumbai rejected her case as 'far too advanced' for a liver transplant. Around three months ago, Medanta offered to try and save her though it would be an extremely high-risk procedure due to her low oxygen state," said Mamta.

Though the hospital has taken up similar milder cases of hepatopulmonary syndrome in which liver failure affects circulation in lungs and in extreme cases leads to lung failure, Paridhi was the first of 50 per cent advanced case, said Medanta's chief liver transplant surgeon Dr. A.S. Soin.

"She now breathes normally without extra oxygen, and will grow like a normal child and live a healthy life. She was easier to handle at Medanta owing to its strong multidisciplinary expertise," said Medanta CMD Naresh Trehan.

Liver transplant is complex and requires perfect function of all other organs, necessitating the medical team to do a bloodless, zero-error, quick surgery, not allowing blood pressure fluctuations, and with 100 percent oxygen support, he added.

After correcting her low oxygen level state and remaining on nitric oxide, high external oxygen, ventilator support and a temporary breathing route for nearly a month, Paridhi finally returned home 33 days after the surgery to join her nine-year-old elder sister.