Successful pregnancy in a uremic patient treated with single needle hemodialysis

Background: Pregnancy is uncommon in patients on maintenance hemodialysis (HD) and it carries a high risk of fetal and maternal complications. Several reports have shown that application of an intensive dialysis regimen is associated with improved infant survival and better clinical conditions of the mother. Methods: We report the case of a 35-year-old black woman with a prosthesic cardiac valve who was treated daily with single needle HD because of difficult vascular access. Result: A healthy full-term female infant with a normal birth weight was electively delivered at 37 weeks. We did not register any complications during or after pregnancy. Conclusion: In our experience, single needle HD is able to provide the patient with adequate depuration during pregnancy, the delivery of a full-term healthy infant, and preservation of the arterial-venous fistula from twice-daily vein puncture.