Unborn baby saved with historic in-utero surgery at 26 weeks

(LifeSiteNews) – A London couple gave birth earlier this year to a healthy baby boy after a harrowing prenatal diagnosis, thanks to a groundbreaking prenatal surgery conducted in the United States.

ABC’s Good Morning America highlighted the story of Maisie Savage and Josh French, whose baby Theo was diagnosed at 20 weeks gestation with a severe case of complex gastroschisis, in which the intestines develop outside of the baby’s body due to an improperly-closed abdominal wall. 

The condition causes an increased chance of stillbirth during delivery, and more common cases are treated by quickly transferring the newborn to neonatal intensive care and performing surgery to move the intestines back inside the body. Prognosis varies based on a variety of factors, but the defect can be fatal.

Baby Theo’s case was severe enough that the parents were informed of a clinical trial for a new, in-utero surgical procedure to correct the condition before birth. So they traveled to Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) in Houston, where Theo became the trial’s third candidate.

“Instead of making a big incision into the uterus to get to the baby, we use this tiny keyhole surgery and then carefully push the intestine back into the abdomen and then close the abdominal wall,” explained TCH associate surgeon-in-chief Dr. Dr. Sundeep Keswani.

The surgery was performed at 26 weeks gestation, after which Theo remained in the womb and healed while continuing to develop during the remainder of his full-term pregnancy.

“He was delivered at term, at normal weight, came into this world just like any other baby, started breastfeeding, and by two days was on full feed,” Keswani said. “By day three, [he was] discharged from the hospital.”

Theo is 5 months old and healthy as of ABC revealing his story.

“We were super anxious and scared and worried,” said his mother Maisie. “It is just a really difficult time for us as a family to process what the start of Theo’s life was looking like it was going to be.”

“He’s such a fantastic little man,” added his father Josh. “He is doing everything that a normal baby should be doing.”

In recent years, there have been numerous stories of medical advances enabling doctors to treat and cure babies before birth, saving them from what would have otherwise been debilitating or even fatal ailments that pro-abortion activists would have cited as proof that their lives would not be worth living and therefore should have been aborted without consequence.

Such prenatal surgeries also highlight the empirical reality that the developing baby is in fact a living human being before birth, complete with his or her own health and medical needs capable of being treated as a patient, and therefore deserving of the same protection, dignity, and care as born humans.