India's 1st female unrelated bone marrow donor fought odds to

Resisting family pressure, a Tamil Nadu woman, whose daughter is suffering from thalassemia major, a serious blood disorder, has donated her bone marrow to a three-month-old infant afflicted with critical autoimmune disease, becoming the first female unrelated bone marrow donor in the country, doctors said.

The bone marrow harvested from the 26-year-old Masilamani, hailing from Mudhalipalayam village near Coimbatore, was transplanted on the infant hailing from the national capital in January this year.

Though the child is still in hospital, doctors are confident he would survive since a graft failure or rejection of the bone marrow by the body would have caused his death within a couple of days.

Bone marrow harvesting involves a procedure during which stem cells are collected with a needle placed into the soft centre of the bone.

"I believe I'm blessed. I managed to break away from the misconceptions of our society to save a child. I feel like I am the mother of the child. I would say it is my child too as now I have given him a second chance to live. I pray to the almighty that he recovers fast and should never suffer again. He must be healthy," Masilamani told PTI.

Masilamani's daughter is a patient of thalassemia major, a serious disorder which causes frequent dip in production of haemoglobin, the iron-containing protein in the red blood cells that carry oxygen through the body, requiring frequent blood transfusions.

Blood transfusions could not have helped the boy survive, doctors said.

Masilamani got married to R Kaviarasan, a fabricator, when she was 20.

"Within a year, my daughter was born and a few months later she was diagnosed with thalassemia major. We both (husband and wife) have our swabs to identify human leukocyte antigen (HLA) to check if we could be of match to our daughter at DATRI - the blood stem cells donor registry. There I found a match and wanted to become a donor for a baby boy."
"My mother-in-law and sister-in-law resisted saying if something went wrong, who will take care of your children?