Contemporary Biology Article Assignment
To Mend a Birth Defect, Surgeons Operate on the Patient Within the Patient
Since the 1990s, Spina Bifida has been repaired by Doctors fetal surgery to lessen the degree of disability. Spina Bifida causes children to not be able to walk, as well as fluid buildup in the brain. It affects 1.500 to 2,000 fetuses a year. The backbone and spinal cord never develop completely or properly causing a gap in the fetus’s lower back exposing bone and nerves. In January 2018, Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. William Whitehead and Dr. Michael Belfort plan to perform a technique (not new, but refined), potentially life threatening or lifesaving, in which they make a wide incision across the mother’s lower abdomen, and pull out her …show more content…
They then make two four-millimeter slits to insert the fetoscope and other miniature instruments. They then use stitches and skin stretching techniques to stretch the skin over the gap and keep it shut to keep the waste in the amniotic fluid out, preventing infections common in fetuses with Spina Bifida. Before prenatal surgery, many doctors believed that this defect was not fatal, so they would perform surgery on the newborn already unable to walk. This new technique could potentially enable children with this defect to walk and live with limited symptoms. The doctors developed this technique by posing a large rubber ball as the uterus and a baby doll wrapped in chicken skin. They practiced this for two years and still use it twice a month to keep up their skills. After this new technique had been invented, a study has found that for specific fetuses, prenatal surgery is the best chance for them rather than waiting until birth. The number of children that
To Mend a Birth Defect, Surgeons Operate on the Patient Within the Patient
Since the 1990s, Spina Bifida has been repaired by Doctors fetal surgery to lessen the degree of disability. Spina Bifida causes children to not be able to walk, as well as fluid buildup in the brain. It affects 1.500 to 2,000 fetuses a year. The backbone and spinal cord never develop completely or properly causing a gap in the fetus’s lower back exposing bone and nerves. In January 2018, Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. William Whitehead and Dr. Michael Belfort plan to perform a technique (not new, but refined), potentially life threatening or lifesaving, in which they make a wide incision across the mother’s lower abdomen, and pull out her …show more content…
They then make two four-millimeter slits to insert the fetoscope and other miniature instruments. They then use stitches and skin stretching techniques to stretch the skin over the gap and keep it shut to keep the waste in the amniotic fluid out, preventing infections common in fetuses with Spina Bifida. Before prenatal surgery, many doctors believed that this defect was not fatal, so they would perform surgery on the newborn already unable to walk. This new technique could potentially enable children with this defect to walk and live with limited symptoms. The doctors developed this technique by posing a large rubber ball as the uterus and a baby doll wrapped in chicken skin. They practiced this for two years and still use it twice a month to keep up their skills. After this new technique had been invented, a study has found that for specific fetuses, prenatal surgery is the best chance for them rather than waiting until birth. The number of children that