Baby born healthy after spinal surgery inside the womb

SWNS

A mum was relieved to see her newborn son kick his legs after he had spinal surgery while still inside the womb.  Serena Nye, 24, was told after her 20-week pregnancy scan her unborn son had spina bifida.  It meant his spine and spinal cord was not developing properly, causing a gap in his spine, leaving at high risk of weakness or total paralysis of his legs.  Serena and partner Chris Bown, 26, were given the choice to continue normally, terminate the pregnancy, or have fetal surgery.  So in an incredible operation, doctors took Serena's womb OUT of her body, at 26 weeks, to operate on her unborn son's spine via keyhole surgery.  After the three hour operation, her womb - and baby - were stitched up back inside her body again until it was time to give birth.  Tommy Bown was born six weeks later, at 31 weeks - and was able to kick his legs and feed normally as a result of the surgery.  He spent four weeks in hospital before doting parents Serena and Chris brought him home, to Eastbourne, East Sussex.  Thanks to the super advanced surgery, the tot, now three months old, is hitting all his milestones - and a scar on his back from the surgery is the only evidence of his op.

Transcript

00:00So I'm Serena, this is Chris and this is our little boy Tommy. He's four months old.

00:06When I was 20 weeks pregnant we went for our 20-week scan. Everything was fine, they were

00:12saying how well he was growing and he had fingers, toes, everything like that. At the end of the scan

00:18she said, oh I just need to send this to a more advanced, a more senior midwife and then she came

00:25back and said that there was a shape in his brain which was a banana shape and this symbolised that

00:33there was something not wrong but not right and so she sent him off and then we, as you do, googled

00:43it and then we saw that it was linked to spina bifida but there could have been other reasons

00:48for it. So we went away, we waited for a phone call and then they came back and said that they're

00:55looking at spina bifida. We didn't know if he was ever going to move his legs, we didn't know

01:01anything but we made the decision that we wanted to stick with the pregnancy and they offered us

01:08a chance to have this foetal surgery. You have to make sure that everything is correct and with

01:14you and baby for you to have this surgery because they can't have any risks. So we had that done at

01:2026 weeks and it was very successful, wasn't it? You had to wait while I was in surgery.

01:28They advised that you can have a preterm labour with the surgery but they were hoping that I'd

01:34get to about 36, 37 weeks but he came at 31 weeks and so we had the other challenge of him being

01:42nine weeks premature. So yeah we spent four weeks in hospital with him but he was absolutely, he

01:49hit every single goal when they wanted him to. He had this scar but we were cleaning it, we would

01:56dress it as well, they taught us how to do that. We have a lot of ongoing appointments for his

02:01spina bifida and we've just had his bladder urology. They said that his bladder is a bit small

02:07and it can't, it doesn't contain as much as a normal bladder at his age. So he's on medication

02:15for that, we have to do cathetering twice a day and we have more tests next month. So at the moment

02:22it's an ongoing thing, we know he has it, he's very cheeky and I knew this even when I was pregnant

02:29with him, I knew he'd be cheeky and that's why one of the reasons I fell in love with the name Tommy,

02:35I just felt like it was a really cheeky little name. But yeah he's funny, isn't he?

02:43He's very independent already, he does what he wants to do. He won't smile at you if he doesn't

02:48want to, like he will. But yeah he always wants cuddles though, doesn't he? He's always, he's very

02:56attached to us which is normal for his age anyway.

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