Cleveland Clinic Undertakes First Fetal Surgery To Repair Spina Bifida

BabyGaga

By Helena Martin

Published Jun 22, 2019

Both the mother and the daughter are doing well, and the surgery seems to be a great success.

Via: Wikimedia Commons

A team of doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio performed the first successful fetal surgery to repair spina bifida. Dr. Darrell Cass led a team of specialists to perform surgery on a fetus at 23 weeks’ gestation last February, and the baby was delivered via caesarean section early this month. Both the mother and the daughter are doing well, and the surgery seems to be a great success.

Spina bifida is a birth defect that develops while a baby is still in the womb. It’s a neural tube defect that occurs because the spinal cord and spine don’t form properly. The neural tube eventually develops into a baby’s brain, spinal cord, and surrounding tissues, and it should close by the 28^th day of conception. Babies with spina bifida, however, have a part that failed to develop or close—causing defects in the spinal cord or the spine itself. This results in nerve or brain damage. Children born with it often have trouble walking because of a lack of lower body strength.

The surgery conducted last February aimed to repair the baby’s spinal birth defect while she was still in the womb. The in-utero operation was performed by creating a small incision similar to a c-section, and an ultrasound was used to locate the fetus. Doctors then made a 4.5 centimetre opening in the fetus’ back to expose the spine, and they sutured layers of tissue to repair the defect. Once this was done, they closed the uterus and allowed the fetus to continue developing in the womb.

While both the baby and the mother are doing well, doctors wish to highlight that spina bifida is never fully cured. The surgery they performed helped minimize future damage, but it wouldn’t have completely repaired the defect. Moving forward, Dr. Cass stressed that the baby will continue to require support and care from a team of different specialists in his clinic. All of these will involve neurology, urology, orthopaedics, developmental paediatrics, and neurosurgery.

This success, however, shows that we can begin to repair birth defects from the womb. Complex cases like spina bifida are can be treated early on, and we can begin to feel more powerful against such heartbreaking conditions. In time, doctors will be able to save even more lives starting from a baby’s development in the womb.