HomeLocal NewsPhoto Gallery: New mothers in Valley donating living tissue
Texas Donor Network's Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles packages a donated placenta for transportation May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center- Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PHOTO GALLERY CONTAINS GRAPHIC MEDICAL PHOTOS.
This Mother’s Day, several new mothers in the Rio Grande Valley are not just celebrating their babies but that together, mother and child gave the gift of saving a life.
Texas Donor Network is an FDA-registered organization based in the Rio Grande Valley that partners with local hospitals to provide donated tissues for research, therapy, transplantation and education.
While the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of ‘tissue donation’ might be organs like kidneys or lungs, there is a wide range of human tissues needed to help people.
So this is where mom and baby come in.
After months of providing shelter, nutrients and developing a healthy immune system, one essential tool of growing a tiny human has served its purpose — the placenta.
The placenta is an organ that forms during pregnancy around the fetus and is attached to the uterus wall. A baby connects to the placenta through an umbilical cord, which is how it gets what it needs until birth.
After that, the placenta usually ends up in the trash, but now the placenta has the chance to help others.
Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles puts on a pair of gloves before beginning the work to process a placenta for donation May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center- Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles puts on a set of surgical sleeves before handling a donated placenta May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles takes a culture swab of a donated placenta to test for infectious diseases and harmful bacteria growth May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)A donated placenta removed during a C-section sits in a basin before processing for transportation May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles cleans and inspects a donated placenta in a basin May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles lifts the placenta to check for any irregularities or meconium staining May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles writes out a series of labels with the identification number for the donated placenta May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles packages a donated placenta for transportation May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)After processing the donated placenta goes into a cooler as Texas Donor Network’s Birth Tissue Specialist Gabriel Arguelles finishes his paperwork May 3, in an operating room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)
