A 25 week-old unborn child diagnosed with a serious heart condition received a new lease on life when surgeons successfully corrected the abnormality during a ground-breaking procedure performed in utero.
The LA Times is reporting on the operation which took place on September 25 at CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles on an unborn baby who was diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis. This condition involves an aortic valve that is too tight to allow the heart to pump normally and causing blood to back up in the left ventricle. If left unrepaired, the left ventricle would not develop properly and the baby would be born with a life-threatening condition known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).
Doctors decided to attempt an operation on the tiny heart, which is about the size of a walnut, after practicing on a model made out of jello with a grape serving as the heart.
The operation took place after the mother was sedated and the baby was given enough anesthesia and muscle relaxant to prevent it from moving during the procedure.
Dr. Ramen Chmait, assistant professor at Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and director of Los Angeles Fetal Therapy, began the operation by inserting a thin metal tube (needle) into the uterus through the mother's belly. Using ultrasound video to see where the needle was passing, he maneuvered it through the amniotic cavity and into the heart of the baby. With great care, he guided the needle into the narrowed aortic valve.
Once the needle was in place, pediatric interventional cardiologist Frank Ing of CHLA threaded a thin wire just 14/1000s of an inch down through the needle and used it to push a tiny balloon into place. He then inflated the balloon to open the valve. Blood immediately began to flow normally into the fetus' heart.
The balloon, wire and needle were withdrawn and the procedure was over.
A few weeks later, both mom and fetus are doing fine.
"There is no question in my mind that without this procedure the baby would have had HLHS," Dr. Chmait said. "Now the baby has a chance to have the left ventricle recover with some good function."
Procedures such as this represent true advances for science as well as for mankind. The practice of aborting babies with abnormalities has cost the lives of untold millions of babies and is just a modern version of the ancient practice of refusing care to children with birth defects and leaving them to die.
Many more infants would have a chance at life if the medical community focused on developing life saving procedures such as this one rather than coming up with new prenatal tests that result in dooming millions of babies to death by abortion.
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