Docs saved my baby with a balloon in the womb...
University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium. It works by inserting a balloon into the baby’s windpipe and inflating it to stop vital amniotic fluid being forced out of the lungs by other organs – in Henry’s case, his liver.
Prof Nicolaides, 67, told Emily and civil engineer Stuart there was no time to spare. She recalls: “He said that if I went home and came back Henry might not live. He wanted to operate there and then. Everything happened so quickly I didn’t have time to be frightened or cry. Stuart was holding my hand and Prof Nicolaides joked with me to keep my spirits up.
“It was only after we had got home that I broke down in tears at the enormity of what I had just been through.”
Two weeks later her waters broke but she didn’t go into labour. A week after that she was admitted to King’s College Hospital. The balloon is usually removed before the baby is born, but in Henry’s case it got stuck in his windpipe, so Emily had to remain in hospital until she gave birth.
Emily says: “I went into labour at 34 weeks. I was terrified he wouldn’t make it. It all happened very rapidly. Within half an hour of going into labour Henry was born.”
As soon as he arrived on March 14, weighing 7lb 14oz, doctors from a 15-strong team picked the balloon from his windpipe. His right lung was in poor shape and Henry was intubated, with his breathing taken over by a life-support machine. He spent six weeks in intensive care.
Emily admits: “We were scared for Henry’s life even after he was born.
“We would go home at night worried that we’d get a call before the morning saying he had taken a turn for the worse or passed away.”
Henry spent a further four weeks on the high-dependency unit and had two further minor ops. But he is now fighting fit. His right lung is growing and by the time he goes to nursery doctors expect it to be a normal size. Prof Nicolaides is hopeful more babies can be saved after results of a 10-year international clinical trial involving 287 women and their babies, including 95 from the UK, with a left-sided CDH.
Henry had a right-sided CDH but was among 35 UK babies treated on compassionate grounds. Funded by the EU, the op could be adopted by the NHS on the basis of the trial results.
Prof Nicolaides, who recently returned to work after fighting cancer, said: “In the beginning we had to cut open the mother, then do the same to get to the defect in the baby.
“Risks of complications were high. Now we do it all through tiny incisions. There are still risks, but it’s a lot safer. We are confident this will become a standard operation.”
Emily, meanwhile, is asking Netflix for a copy of the documentary to show Henry when he’s grown up. But she adds: “I think Teletubbies and other kids’ stuff will come first!”