Surgery on pregnant mum saves unborn baby's leg

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian surgeons saved the leg of an unborn baby by operating when her mother was just 22 weeks' pregnant, in what may be the earliest in-utero surgery of its type, the hospital said Monday.

Baby girl Leah had a rare condition in which stray bands of tissue wrap themselves around the developing foetus's limbs or digits, in this case both her legs, and cut off blood flow.

Her parents decided to go ahead with the operation after being told she faced the prospect of both her feet being amputated by the constricting bands as she grew within the womb.

A spokeswoman for Melbourne's Monash Medical Centre said the surgery was believed to be a world first because doctors usually hold back on operating until the mother is 28 weeks' pregnant to better...