Advantages Of Fetal Surgery

Fetal surgery or prenatal surgery is a surgical procedure performed on a fetus prior to birth while it is still in the uterus. It is usually performed under the circumstances that the fetus is not expected to survive birth or long after delivery and if the fetus has a severe deformity that can be repaired in utero. The most common surgeries are for congenital abnormalities or birth defects like removing a tumor, spina bifida, fetal alcohol syndrome, urinary tract obstructions, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, twin-twin reverse arterial perfusion, and many more conditions. This topic appeals to me because fetal surgery is very unique and modern due to the fact that it is not completely discovered; there are still clinical trials and experiments

Advantages of fetal surgery include developmental plasticity, immune tolerance, stem cell biology, and fetal size. Developmental plasticity refers to plasticity of the tissues and cellular levels of the fetus. This allows the restoration of organ development and function after fetal surgery. Secondly, immune tolerance involves the immature immune system of the fetus which allows the immune system to tolerate foreign cells, organs, or proteins, meaning the use of immunosuppressants to avoid rejections is not needed. Next, stem cell biology has higher accessibility in prenatal life rather than postnatal because stem cells are at higher frequency. Lastly, the small size of the fetus and the small number of cells allows large doses of donor cells increasing the health of the child (Center for Fetal Research 2014). Additionally, another benefit of fetal surgery is to better the chances of the fetus surviving birth or to repair a severe abnormality. For instance, a twenty-four week and two day old fetus had a severe form of spina bifida, in which the backbone and spinal cord are not developed properly. Children with this condition are not able to walk, and suffer from fluid buildup in the brain, lack of bladder control, and other complications. Spina bifida generally is not fatal, which is the reason standard practice was to operate after birth, but the results were mixed from children who could not walk to other severe defects. Surgeons began to suspect the outcomes would be better if the defect could be repaired before birth. In this child’s condition, the condition was so severe that the brain stem was being pulled down into the spinal column. This would often lead to fetoscopic surgery which, at the time, was an experimental procedure and had no guarantee. The open procedure took three hours. All the surgeons involved took every precaution to safeguard the