NATION IN BRIEF : ILLINOIS : Mother in Liver Transplant Gains

The mother who contributed part of her liver to her toddler daughter in the nation’s first live-donor liver transplant was still unable to visit her daughter, but doctors upgraded the mother’s condition to good. The 21-month-old girl, Alyssa Smith of Schertz, Tex., who underwent the operation Monday at the University of Chicago Hospitals, remained in intensive care in critical condition. Doctors said she was still on the “normal course of recovery” for a pediatric liver transplant patient. The mother, Terri Smith, 29, was unlikely to see her daughter soon because the trip between the hospital rooms may tire her, a hospital spokesman said.