Biliary Atresia is a condition of the liver wherein the bile ducts are absent or inflamed or, though present, unable to convey bile out of the liver. It is not clear how or why this occurs. Without any outlet, the bile builds up within the liver and begins to poison it.

The liver soon becomes cirrhotic and eventually dies, normally within one year of birth, leading to the death of the patient.

Its manifestations are jaundice, yellow-colored urine and pale stools. Soon, the patient's stomach becomes distended. As the liver begins to fail, the patient is unable to absorb the nutrients of the food the patient takes and becomes malnourished.

Biliary Atresia normally occurs in one in every 15,000 births, usually to a first born baby girl. In the Philippines, this ratio translates to around 200 biliary atresia babies being born every year.

When the liver becomes cirrhotic, there is no other recourse but a liver transplantation, if the patient is to survive.

A Kasai Procedure (developed by a Japanese surgeon, Professor Morio Kasai in 1959) affords biliary atresia babies with an 80 % chance to live a normal life without having to undergo a liver transplant. The procedure involves using a loop of the small intestine to form a duct to drain the bile from the liver.

But for this procedure to be effective, the biliary atresia baby has to be operated on within two months of birth, the so-called "Golden Window." Operations can be done on children as young as 11 days old.

Thus, early diagnosis is very important. If the procedure is done after 2 months, the chances for success are nil. For this reason, all infants who show jaundice for the first four weeks after birth should be examined for biliary atresia.

WHY LIFT-B.A.B.I.E.S. WAS ESTABLISHED?

LIFT-B.A.B.I.E.S. was founded as a result of the travails of Jess and Lulu Matubis and their family with Jeremaia, their first and only grandchild who was born March 2, 1999 with biliary atresia and who needed a liver transplant in order to live. By the time she was eight months old, she was just skin and bones, her life wasting away.

A transplant was not possible locally, only abroad which would cost around P10 million, an amount that the Matubis family could not afford. There was no local organization that could help them find a liver transplant for Jeremaia, much less give advice about the disease and how to go about looking for help.

By the grace of God, after the Matubis family prayed to the Lord for the miracles that Jeremaia needed, everything began to happen. She was accepted by Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota as their first humanitarian case from Asia, meaning the Matubis family didn't have to pay a single centavo. She was given a liver transplant March 30, 2000, just 14 days after she arrived in Rochester.

Jeremaia today is a healthy, precocious, intelligent, sociable child who turned six years old last March 2, 2005. She is presently vacationing with her grandparents in the Philippines, together with her mother, Jesselou.

LIFT-B.A.B.I.E.S. and our Hospital Outreach Program is the Matubis clan's way of thanking and paying back the good Lord, for all the blessings that He has showered on Jeremaia and the Matubis clan.