Bay Area Doctor Pioneers Fetal Surgery To Save Lives

Apr. 26 -- It's every soon-to-be parents' worst nightmare. Everything seems ok, and then during a prenatal check-up they get the news, their baby has a deadly birth defect. But now, new techniques and technologies allow doctors to go inside the womb and save lives.

Baby Arissa is healthy now, but her parents expected the worst before she was born. Doctors discovered a birth defect where her intestines protruded outside her body. She had the first of five operations when she was only a few hours old.

Mina Mangewala, Arissa's Mom: "I didn't get to hug her or kiss her. They had to take her in for surgery right away."

72 days later Arissa's parents finally took her home.

Rob Mangewala Arissa's Dad: "When we finally left with her, we just felt like we had to race out of there, you know like they were going to keep us in there."

UCSF surgeon Hanmin Lee not only operates on newborns like Arissa, he also performs fetal surgeries done in utero to correct birth defects that would kill a child if he waited to operate after birth.

Dr. Hanmin Lee, UCSF Fetal Surgeon: "We can actually correct the defect and allow the child to be healthier or even survive an otherwise un-survivable birth defect."

In fact, Dr. Michael Harrison from UCSF pioneered fetal surgery. He performed the procedure for a 20/20 segment, where he began by cutting into the mother's abdomen to operate on a fetus with a tumor. Dr. Harrison repositioned the fetus arm to remove the tumor crushing the baby's heart. He then carefully returned the fetus to the womb, with delivery still several weeks away.

Fetal surgeries do carry risks for the mother, and there's no guarantee the child will benefit. But those risks are decreasing with better tools and imaging techniques. Doctors can pass endoscopes into the uterus to see the fetus and correct the problem.

Dr. Hanmin Lee: "We are now doing procedures through needles, In other instances, through instruments that are the size of a straw."

Right now, doctors only perform fetal surgeries in life-threatening situations -- that's because there's a 50-percent chance the mother could go into pre-term labor. A controversial study is now underway to see if treating spina bifida in utero will mean a better life for kids, even though the condition is not usually life threatening.

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•