It is, of course, every expectant mother's worst nightmare. She goes in for a routine ultrasound and doctors find a life-threatening problem.
Such is what happened to Savannah Perry of Lafayette, Colorado. Perry's doctors at Children's Hospital of Colorado found an abnormality in her unborn baby's at 20 weeks.
"We didn't even know if she was going to survive," Perry told WTAJ-TV. "They did another ultrasound probably about a week later and at that time they said it looked like there was a cyst inside of her lung." (Fortunately it proved to be non-malignant.)
"I think there was a significant risk once she delivered," Dr. Timothy Crombleholme told WTAJ.
"She was happy as a clam in utero. It's just that when you make that transition we're now asking the lungs to support the baby–that wouldn't work. So, we knew we had to come up with a separate strategy," according to Dr. Crombleholme.
Put another way, "You could push air in, but it wouldn't come out," Dr. Crombleholme said. Lake "wouldn't make it out of the delivery room."
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The strategy was to take baby Lake out of her mother's womb and—while she was still attached to the placenta—doctors would remove the cyst before the delivery.
The surgery was hugely complicated and involved "teams of doctors and nurses with specialized roles –a team for Perry who would undergo a cesarean operation, a team for Lake while still inside the womb, a team for Lake while Crombleholme operated on her outside the womb, and a team for Lake after her birth," Fox News reported.
Dr. Crombleholme, who is Fetal Surgeon, Surgeon-In-Chief, at Children's Hospital, "decided to wait until after 30 weeks of pregnancy to attempt the surgery to remove the cyst and clear Lake's airway right before birth," Fox News reported. "Once Lake was out of Perry's womb it took Crombleholme nine minutes to remove the cyst and close the gaping incision on her right side. It took another 10 minutes to run a tube down Lake's tiny windpipe to make sure it was clear. Then doctors cut the umbilical cord, marking Lake's official birth.
Baby Lake is now a year old and "is a normal, healthy, young baby girl just like any other baby born without any issues," said Lake's father, Erik Hall.
"She is doing amazing," Savannah Perry, Lake's mother told WTAJ. "She is learning to walk. She walks around furniture now. She loves anywhere she is not supposed to be," Savannah said.
Her left lung, which was so large (because of fluid build-up) that it was touching her right chest wall at birth, is close to normal size.
Referring to Lake's parents, the reporter for WTAJ closed her report, saying
"They believe one thing for certain. She is supposed to be here."
Contact: Dave Andrusko, National Right to Life
