Baby Survives ‘Second Birth' After Emergency Surgery

A baby in Texas with a rare birth defect who was removed from the womb at 23 weeks to undergo surgery and then put back in her mother's uterus is nothing short of a miracle.

Early in her pregnancy, Margaret Boemer got some scary news about her baby.

"At 16 weeks, being pregnant I found out that our baby had Sacrococcygeal Teratoma," Boehmer recalled.

Surgeon Darrell Cass at Texas Children's Hospital says when babies are born with SCT it is almost always fixable, but when they see it on a fetus there are far fewer successes. So when Boemer's checkup revealed baby Lynlee was going into heart failure, she had no option but to try fetal surgery.

"We knew that if we didn't choose the option of emergency surgery that night, that within a day or so she would pass."

During the surgery, a tumor was taken off Lynlee's spine and she was then put back into her mother's womb. From there, blood flow from mom to baby encouraged growth, healing and mom gave a healthy delivery at 36 weeks.

"It was her second birth basically. It was a relief to finally see her and to see that she had made it through after the open fetal surgery her heart had time to heal while I was still pregnant with her so she has no heart issues now and is just doing amazing," beamed Boemer.

Lynlee is now 4 months old.

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