National Donor Day: Delco mother donates kidney to son after she was "perfect match"
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- This Valentine's Day is also National Donor Day to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation. This donor's day celebrates the gift of life and the growing number of living donors.
This is a mother-son love match in Delaware County with a special connection.
Five-year-old Jazz loves playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with his mom Shanequa Hammock.
"Giving up an organ can be very scary," she said.
When Hammock was pregnant, her baby's kidneys weren't developing properly. He'd eventually need a transplant.
"I am the perfect match, it was just amazing how close we were," she said.
But there was a catch, she had to lose 40 pounds.
"The key principle of evaluating living donors is to make sure we're not doing any harm to a healthy person," Dr. Matthew Levine.
Levine, a transplant surgeon at Penn Medicine and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said obese people are at risk for developing kidney disease so they can't be donors.
"If I don't lose this weight then my son can't have my kidney," Hammock said. "It was just you have to do it for your son, you have to do it for Jazz. If you do this, you are going to be able to give him life twice and that inspired me a lot."
She said it wasn't easy, but she got down to 175 pounds in just a couple of months and Jazz got his kidney last year.
"Kids go from really having a lot of issues to going to normal lives and that's one of the great aspects of what we do, it's really enjoyable to see that," Levine said.
"He was a rockstar," Hammock said.
They both recovered with no issues.
"We get to celebrate this donation process and cherish that love that we have inside our family," Hammock said.
Doctors said Hammock is lucky, not all family members are good matches but living donors can be part of a paired exchange with the ability to save even more lives.