Texas child can walk thanks to spinal bifida surgery she received in-utero

HOUSTON - A family from the Bryan/College Station area thought their daughter was going to be wheelchair-bound for life because of spina bifida, but they traveled to Houston for specialized care during pregnancy. It turned out to be such a success story - their daughter recently won a medal in the Special Olympics.

Olivia is a happy, busy second-grader who loves to run and play. Her parents are still in awe she can do that, after finding out four months into pregnancy that their beloved child had spina bifida. "We had never heard of spina bifida before, so you're trying to figure out what it is. The diagnosis was paralyzed from the knees down, limited movement in the upper thigh," explains her dad, Jason Andruss.

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They soon found out they had a chance to repair the complication at Texas Children's Pavilion for Women, before their baby was even born. "They would take the baby out and operate on her, or on the fetus at the time, and then put her back in me, and I would carry her longer, I couldn't fathom what they told me," explains Ashley Andruss, Olivia's Mother. She and Jason say they spent plenty of time praying about what to do. "We prayed about it as a family, and we just had this overwhelming joy from the presence of the Lord, who told us that this was our path, so we gave the yes to go with it, and we moved forward," says Jason.

We got to tour an operating room at Texas Children's Hospital, where medical workers practice the procedure. Dr. Michael Belfort is one of the co-creators of it, spending hundreds of hours practicing a kickball, as though it was a uterus. It became his life's mission to help as many babies with spina bifida as possible.

Approximately 1,500 are born every year with a spinal cord that doesn't close before birth. "What you have is an exposure of the spinal cord itself and the nerves that are coming off the spinal cord that go to the lower part of the baby's body, that would be the legs, the bowel, the bladder," says Dr. Belfort. That causes too much fluid in and around the brain and nerves around the spine are damaged.

*Watch the Andruss' family full sit down with Melissa below.*

Dr. Belfort is able to make life-changing repairs, using only two tiny puncture holes in the uterus, helping "prevent" paralysis and other serious symptoms. "It's been shown that having fetal surgery prior to delivery does two things: one, it reduces the need for a shunt after birth to protect the ventricles from the hydrocephalus or the fluid in the brain and it doubles the chances of walking independently," explains Dr. Belfort.

Plus, he says it offers major benefits for the mom. "The mother does not have to have a cesarian section. She does not have to deliver early and she is not at risk of rupturing her uterus, for the current pregnancy or future pregnancies," explains Dr. Belfort.

The Andruss family knew the surgery was a success moments after Olivia was born. "When she was lying on her stomach, she pushed up with her legs and lifted her body. It was like, how is that even possible? Number one, she's a newborn, not even a couple of hours old, and everything she had been through, we just didn't expect that kind of strength," explains Ashley.

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"We were the 23rd successful two-port fetal pedoscopic surgery in the history of the U.S., so it was still experimental back then but those outcomes with those few before us were positive," says Jason. It continues to be a huge success with more than 200 successfully performed. "I still just never thought she would be that kid who could do these normal things that kids her age do. Running in the Special Olympics, in the 100-meter dash," says Ashley.

Plus, she loves helping with their animals on the farm. "Thankful doesn't even begin to describe that the doctors here cared enough to invent a new surgery that would give a child whose diagnosis was in a wheelchair, to give them hope that they might be able to walk," says Jason.

Olivia takes it a step further than that every day.

For more information on Fetoscopic Repair of Spina Bifida click here.