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Despite COVID-19 barriers, parents fight for in-utero surgery to help son

Posted at 1:43 PM, Jul 21, 2020
and last updated 2020-07-21 14:44:27-04

The coronavirus outbreak has put a hold on many things over the last few months, including some elective surgeries.

When Nohely Uriostegui and her husband, Jose Pava, found out they were pregnant with a little boy, they were ecstatic. Then, the unfortunate news: their baby had spina bifida.

"After that, she said we’re going to do a test. You might be eligible for an in-utero surgery," said Uriostegui.

That means surgery while the baby is still in the womb, and it had to be performed before 26 weeks of pregnancy. Everything was set up to go in Chicago until a phone call came from her doctor.

"He said, 'You know what? Based on COVID, everybody here on the team doesn’t feel like it’s an essential type of surgery,’" recalled Uriostegui.

The same situation was unfolding for all types of patients around the country. Those hoping surgery could help their chronic pain were told they’d have to endure it for months longer. Organ transplant candidates were forced to wait as well. For Nohely and Jose, a delay meant they might miss their window to help their baby. But then, hope from three states away in Colorado.

"For this family, the clock was ticking. She had until she was 26 weeks to have fetal intervention, and that was literally five days, four days away. And they had to get from Chicago to here, be evaluated, have surgery set up to be performed, and so, we were able to do that for them," said Colorado Fetal Care Center surgeon Dr. Ken Liechty.

The couple decided to travel to Colorado to have the procedure done.

"I got there on the 4th; my surgery was set for Monday, April 6, which was the exact same date that I was going to get it done in Chicago, and it was one day before I hit the 26-week mark," said Uriostegui.

"It’s open fetal surgery on the fetus as the actual patient," said Dr. Liechty. "We excise the cyst, we put the spinal cord back into the spinal canal."

Doctors then put the muscle back over to seal it, close the skin over it, and then close the uterus. Without the in-utero surgery, Dr. Liechty says 90 percent of babies with spina bifida have a shunt put in to decompress the brain. However, that likely wouldn’t have been the only surgery he would have needed.

"These shunts fail, they can get infected, they can have all kinds of problems, they average seven surgeries at least for these shunts in their first few years of their life," said Dr. Liechty.

In the time of this pandemic, that could mean more waiting as hospital beds begin to fill back up with coronavirus patients.

"COVID-19 caused a lot of places around the country to reexamine what cases could be done in their facilities, and a number of fetal centers are actually located in adult centers," said Dr. Liechty.

Those places are filling up faster than children's hospitals, causing families like Uriostegui and her husband to almost miss opportunities to help their children before they even enter the world.

"The neurosurgeon over there actually said to us last time, that if you were to look at him, you would have never guessed that he’s born with spina bifida or that we went through this whole journey," said Uriostegui.