SUM surgeons conduct challenging surgery on newborn

Bhubaneswar: Surgeons at SUM Ultimate Medicare have successfully conducted surgery to repair Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH) in a newborn baby whose condition was diagnosed while it was still in the mother’s womb.

The premature baby, who was delivered in the eighth month of pregnancy through caesarian section, was put on ventilator support immediately as it was facing difficulty in breathing and kept there for three days, Dr. Pradeep Kumar Dey, Senior Consultant, Pediatric and Neonatology, said.

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A team of doctors, led by pediatric surgeon Dr. Antaryami Pradhan, planned a CDH repair surgery and the operation was conducted on the third day after birth to repair the defect. In such cases, the diaphragm of the baby which separates the chest and abdomen cavities fail to develop properly causing the organs of the abdomen to move into the chest cavity.

“The severity in this case was much higher as the left lobe of the baby’s liver had also entered the chest cavity,” said Dr. Ajay Kumar Gahan, Junior Consultant, adding “CDH is a rare condition which is found in one in 3,000 newborn babies”.

The baby would be undergoing an MRI scan next month and its neuro-development assessment done every two months for the next two years, he said.