BOSTON: A team of doctors from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital performed groundbreaking surgery on a baby still in the womb.
Derek and Kenyatta Coleman are from Louisiana. Their pregnancy was normal until doctors noticed something unusual at their 30-week ultrasound. That’s when they had to decide whether or not to treat their baby before it was born.
Baby Denver was growing normally inside her mother when, on a routine ultrasound, doctors discovered she had a vein of Galen malformation, a rare abnormality of blood vessels in the brain. Many children with the condition develop heart failure or brain damage and often do not survive. In fact, Denver’s heart was struggling and the malformation was growing dangerously large.
So at 34 weeks pregnant, Boston Children’s and Brigham’s team were able to correct her malformation while she was still in the womb using ultrasound guidance, a needle similar to those used for amniocentesis, and tiny coils that were placed directly into the abnormal blood vessels to blood flow has stopped.
The left side of this image shows the large vessel, the right side of the image is after repair.
And this is the brain 26 days after the baby is born.
“The best part was when she was born, just seeing her in the ICU was fine and, you know, we all looked at each other and pinched each other,” Orbach said.
Denver’s mom and dad say all the stars aligned to save their little girl.
Seven weeks have passed since the procedure and both mother and baby are doing very well. The couple says they are eternally grateful to the medical teams who cared for them here in Boston, but are glad to be back home in Louisiana with their three other children.
