Houston-area boy born with organs on outside of his body is thriving

A local couple gets alarming news during pregnancy! They found out their baby would be born with organs on the outside of his body, but they lined-up a medical team from UTHealth Houston to help save their baby boy.

Four-year-old Tristan is a typical preschooler who adores showing off his skills on his beloved tractor. His parents are beyond relieved he's doing so well.

"I give a lot of thanks to the surgeon and medical team at UT," says Tristan's mother, Kate.

Things weren't always this positive. They got shocking news during Kate's routine twelve-week ultrasound, when she was pregnant with Tristan.

"It was a big circle thing on his belly in the sonogram or ultrasound, and his head would be on it - his intestines, liver, and stomach, were in the sack outside of his body," explains Kate. "I always called it the world's scariest snow globe," echos Rick.

That globe was something they had never even heard of.

"She told us there appeared to be an omphalocele, and she's going to refer us a maternal medicine high-risk Obstetrician," says Kate.

They didn't know just how serious his condition would be, until he was born.

"The condition that he has - the omphalocele comes in all different sizes, small, medium, and big, and his was on the bigger side," says Dr. Kuojen Tsao, who is the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at UTHealth Houston Fetal Center.

He did everything in his power to prepare this family about what was to come.

"When you first see it, you make a quick assessment - is this something we can fix right away, meaning in a day or so, or is something that's going to take a while? He fell into that category that this is going to take patience and be a little bit longer road for the family and him, but we'll get him there eventually," explains Dr. Tsao.

The few minutes after Tristan was born, via a planned c-section, were dramatic, because of the omphalocele.

"If the sack bursts, the survivability rate drops from something like 80 to 50 or 40, so that was the scariest thing. He comes out and I hear a couple of screams and I remember being flooded with relief that he was making the right noises," states Rick.

"It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard," says a happy and emotional Kate.

Tristan was only in neo-natal ICU or NICU for a month. They expected it to be half a year! He could have also had an entire syndrome prompting life-long complications, but that wasn't the case either. They were off to a good start!

Once home, they had to wait for Tristan's body to grow for surgery, so most of the treatment depended on his parents.

"Once skin started to grow over the sack, it became a scab and skin literally grew over it and once that happened, we took an ace, it sounds very archaic, but we took an ace bandage and just started wrapping it tighter and tighter and just manually pushed all of the organs back into his body," explains Kate.

They did that for more than a year!

"The wrapping up the abdomen on a daily basis for a kid that's running around, that's what made my job extremely easy! The family's dedication to that therapy, it's like physical therapy leading up to the operation, so he would have not had the outcome, if the family had not done that," states Dr. Tsao.

Finally, at 15 months, Tristan was deemed ready for surgery and Dr. Tsao and his team successfully pulled it off at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Tristan is now expected to be able to enjoy a normal childhood! He will be closely monitored for any complications or blockages throughout his life.

It has undoubtedly been a trying time for the family, but Tristan's mom says the journey actually helped her find her faith again.

For more information: https://www.utphysicians.com/thefetalcenter