A baby girl
from Lewisville, Texas, has been "born" twice after she was taken out
of her mother's womb for 20 minutes for life-saving surgery.
At 16 weeks
pregnant, Margaret Hawkins Boemer discovered her daughter, Lynlee Hope, had a
tumour on her spine.
The mass,
known as a sacrococcygeal teratoma, was diverting blood from the foetus -
raising the risk of fatal heart failure.
Baby Lynlee
weighed just 1lb 3oz (0.53kg) when surgeons opened the womb.
Mrs Boemer had
originally been expecting twins, but lost one of her babies before the second
trimester. She was initially advised to terminate her pregnancy entirely before
doctors at Texas Children's Fetal Center suggested the risky surgery.
The tumour and
the unborn baby were almost the same size by the time the operation was
performed. Lynlee was given a 50% chance of survival.
Mrs Boemer told
CNN: "At 23 weeks, the tumour was shutting her heart down
and causing her to go into cardiac failure, so it was a choice of allowing the
tumour to take over her body or giving her a chance at life.
"It was
an easy decision for us: We wanted to give her life."
'Her
heart stopped'
Doctor Darrell
Cass of Texas Children's Fetal Centre was one of the team who carried out the
surgery. He said the
tumour had been so large that a "huge" incision was required to reach
it, leaving the baby "hanging out in the air".
Lynlee's heart
virtually stopped during the procedure but a heart specialist kept her alive
while most of the tumour was removed, he added. The team then placed her back
in her mother's womb and sewed her uterus up.
Mrs Boemer
spent the next 12 weeks on bedrest, and Lynlee entered the world for the second
time on 6 June. She was born via Caesarean at almost full term, weighing 5Ib
and 5oz, and named after both of her grandmothers.
When Lynlee
was eight days old, a further operation helped remove the rest of the tumour
from her tailbone.
Dr Cass said
the baby girl was now home and thriving. "Baby Boemer is still an infant
but is doing beautiful," he confirmed.
Sacrococcygeal
teratoma is a rare form of tumour seen in one out of 30,000-70,000 live births.
Its cause is unknown but baby girls are affected four times more often than
boys.
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