‘Mama and I’ is a leading center for diagnosis and treatment of children with congenital anomalies
In just a year and a half, the newest and most modern clinic for mothers and children has become the leading center for diagnosis and treatment of children with congenital anomalies in the country. In the first six months since the clinic opened, 66 children have been diagnosed and treated at ‘Mama and I’, and in the past 2024, 229 children with such problems have been treated.
“The fact that more and more families are turning to us is proof of the success of the multidisciplinary approach we apply, the only one in the country,” said Dr Velimir Simov, head of the paediatrics department. “Our teams will continue to see, without fail and around the clock, the most severe cases. We are proud that at ‘Mama and I’ we are developing paediatrics very successfully and we strive to cover the whole pathology and the whole range of examinations to help children and their parents. Our goal is to provide quality medical genetic counseling, which is the basis of prevention of genetic diseases and their consequences,” says Dr. Simov.
All state-of-the-art diagnostic, treatment, technology and specialist options are available to young patients and their parents. Imaging, clinical laboratory, immunological and genetic tests are performed as quickly as possible and in one place. The paediatrics clinic employs specialists of European level whose expertise patients seek – Assoc. Maria Gaidarova, paediatric nephrologist, prof. Dobrin Konstantinov, paediatric oncohaematologist, prof. Stefan Stefanov, paediatric rheumatologist and others.
Many of the young patients have diagnoses whose etiology needs to be further refined. Follow-up for luxations is done by established paediatric orthopaedists and traumatologists under the guidance of Prof. Asparuh Asparuhov. Neuromuscular diseases, the whole spectrum of epilepsy, children with neuro-psychiatric development disorders, including autism, are consulted with the leading neurologist prof. Plamen Bojinov and his team. The genetic laboratory of ‘Mama and I’, under the leadership of Assoc. Elitsa Becheva-Kraichir, applies an algorithm of specialized tests for timely and accurate diagnosis, analysis, interpretation approaches and long-term follow-up.
“There is a bench in Stara Zagora, placed by the National Alliance of People with Rare Diseases in Bulgaria, which says: “There is an invisible city of 400 000 people with rare diagnoses in Bulgaria”. We have been talking about this for years – with individual specialists, with people from the Alliance, with patient organisations and with dozens of our patients. But there is no strategy at national level,” says Assoc.prof. Becheva-Kraichir.
The specialists remind that the best treatment is prevention and follow-up, before the development of symptoms and complications, and that this is how to work according to the most up-to-date directives for good medical practice, modern paediatrics and genetics.
