Mother Suffering From Cancer Sacrifices Herself to Save Unborn Baby
At the sixth month stage of her pregnancy, a mother from Williamstown, New Jersey found out that her skin cancer had spread to her brain, liver, kidney, and stomach.
Upon hearing the devastating news from her doctors, Danielle Janofsky had only one thing in mind: She had to trade her own life to save the baby, Faithwire reported.
Two weeks after being told that her days were numbered, she delivered her son via C-section.
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"She made the selfless and loving decision to deliver baby Jake on Friday February 24th thereby sacrificing herself so that her son could live," her family said in a statement, as quoted by Today.
Danielle died three days later. She was 30.
Jake weighed only 1 pound and 11 ounces when he was born at the University of Pennsylvania hospital. He has been diagnosed with chronic lung disease and still being treated in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital.
Aside from Jake, Danielle left behind her husband Max and their 4-year-old daughter Avery.
Danielle's mother, Barbara Jackson, was overcome with grief at the loss of her beloved daughter, saying in a Facebook post: "If love could have saved her, she would have lived a hundred years. I will miss you forever my Dani," Jackson wrote.
The family has set up a Go Fund Me page for Avery and Jake, setting a goal of $100,000. They have so far raised over $80,000.
Danielle's battle with melanoma began in May 2015 when she found a mole on her left shoulder. After it was biopsied, her doctors informed her it was cancerous. She immediately had it removed and was given "a good prognosis," her husband said.
She kept going to a dermatologist for skin checkups every three months.
The skin cancer returned when she was already pregnant with her second child. The doctors said she had advanced melanoma and that the only treatment option was immunotherapy, which is not advised during pregnancy.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, with over 160,000 Americans expected to be diagnosed with the disease this year, according to Melanoma.com.
Every hour, one American dies from the disease, which can develop anywhere on the body—eyes, scalp, nails, feet, and mouth among other places.
Being pregnant doesn't seem to increase the risk, the American Academy of Dermatology says.
But it may affect the way a woman's body deals with the cancer, says Dr. Sapna Patel, a melanoma oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
"It's possible that pregnancy is a type of immune suppression. Your body is really focusing its efforts on growing another human being, so it's a little distracted on really taking care of itself," Patel told Today.
