
The Specialized Field of Fetal Surgery - animo
https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2018/october/timothy-crombleholme-works-on-babies-before-theyre-born/?src=longreads
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trey-jones
In 2009, when my wife was 20 weeks pregnant, we were told that our little girl
in the womb had spina bifida. We had never heard of it. The next day we
traveled to Atlanta to see a specialist and get some more information and a
second opinion.

One of our options was to move to Philadelphia for probably 6-8 months to be a
part of a trial one of the in-utero surgeries referenced here. We declined for
several reasons:

* All the daunting decisions that might come with relocation

* Possibility of her being in the control group

* Additional risk to her from in-utero surgery

* Unknown benefit compared to post-natal surgery

Maybe some others. For us, relocation would have been a huge disruption of our
life and goals at the time. If not for that we might have been more
interested.

I sometimes wonder if I should regret that decision, now that studies are
showing outcomes to be better overall, but I don't. We are happy. Our child is
not without issues, but she's OK, and we obviously have no insight on how
making the opposite decision would have changed her life or ours.

My wife was also able to have VBAC for both of our other children. I'm not
sure this would have been possible, had we gone through with this. A small
thing, but not insignificant to us.

~~~
myth_drannon
Humans are bad at assessing risks. 1 out 1000, sounds really low but to the
one person it happens, it is everything.

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Bucephalus355
FYI, due to the complications involved with dosing anesthesia at small
weights, surgery was for the most part done on babies without anesthesia prior
to 1986.

Obviously I think it should be done, but it brings up a fascinating
philosophical debate and shows how different surgeries on babies and those and
the womb can be. Many of those who’ve had surgery as a baby no longer recall
the pain. Does this make what happened okay? Some ppl argue circumcising
causes a great deal of pain, but there is no society-wide memory of searing
pain from that procedure.

