Philadelphia Mother Names Her Child After the Oncologist Who Saved Both of Their Lives; What To Know About Cancer & Pregnancy

"We’re all here today because I have two wonderful doctors who took very good care of me and my daughter," she said at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Kaewell learned she had breast cancer in 2019. Soon later, she learned that she was pregnant. During Kaewell's first trimester, she had a mastectomy and underwent chemotherapy.

"She was nervous, who wants to hear they have cancer anytime in life, let alone when they’re pregnant," said OBGYN Dr. Elyce Cardonick of Cooper University Health Care. Dr. Cardonick and Dr. Allison Aggon of Fox Chase Cancer Center were the primary healthcare providers supporting Kaewell throughout this time of fear and uncertainty.

Dr. Cardonick has spent over 20 years helping mothers battle cancer during pregnancy, but for oncologist Dr. Aggon, it was her first time operating on a pregnant woman with breast cancer. The reunion wasn't just special for KaewellDr. Aggon has Kaewell's birth announcement framed on her wall. In fact, Kaewell named her daughter after Dr. Aggon.

"They both saved me and my daughter. There's nothing I can say to express how I feel about them," Kaewell told 6 ABC, Philadelphia.

Lauren Chiarello thought shed never have children naturally after cancer — now she is pregnant with twins.

How Cancer Treatment Can Affect Fertility

Some types of chemotherapy can destroy eggs in your ovaries. This can make it impossible or difficult to get pregnant later. Whether or not chemotherapy makes you infertile depends on the type of drug and your age since your egg supply decreases with age.

"The risk is greater the older you are," said Dr. Jaime Knopman, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist with years of experience treating couples and individuals experiencing infertility. "If you're 39 and you get chemo that's toxic to the ovaries, it's most likely to make you menopausal. But, if you're 29, your ovaries may recover because they have a higher baseline supply."

Radiation to the pelvis can also destroy eggs. It can damage the uterus, too. Surgery on your ovaries or uterus can hurt fertility as well.

If you are having a treatment that includes infertility as a possible side effect, your doctor won't be able to tell you for sure whether you will have this side effect. That's why you should discuss your options for fertility preservation before starting treatment.

Research shows that women who have fertility preservation prior to breast cancer treatment, in particular, are more than twice as likely to give birth after treatment than those who don't take fertility preserving measures.

There are a variety of fertility preservation options for women who are diagnosed with breast cancer.

Options For Preserving Your Fertility Before Cancer Treatment

Most women who preserve their fertility before cancer treatment do so by freezing their eggs or embryos.

After you finish your cancer treatment, a doctor who specializes in reproductive medicine can implant one or more embryos in your uterus or the uterus of a surrogate with the hope that it will result in pregnancy. If you freeze eggs only before treatment, a fertility specialist can use sperm and your eggs to create embryos in vitro and transfer them to your uterus.

When freezing eggs or embryos is not an option, doctors may try these less common approaches:

• Ovarian tissue freezing, an experimental approach for girls who haven't yet reached puberty and don't have mature eggs or for women who must begin treatment right away and don't have time to harvest eggs.
• Ovarian suppression, to prevent the eggs from maturing so that they cannot be damaged during treatment.
• Ovarian transposition, for women getting radiation to the pelvis, to move the ovaries out of the line of treatment.

Contributing: SurvivorNet staff

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