The possibility that a baby with spina bifida walk and have an autonomous life began to be outlined at 26 weeks of gestation thanks to the intervention of a team of specialists from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).
In the High Specialty Medical Unit Gynecology Obstetrics Hospital No. 3located in the La Raza National Medical Centera complex fetal microsurgery was carried out whose objective was to reconstruct the fetus’s defective spinal cord and decisively modify its life prognosis at birth.
Spina bifida occurs when the neural tube does not close properly, leaving the nerve roots exposed. This malformation causes the inability to move the legs and fluid accumulation in the brain.
Given this scenario, specialist Antonio Helue Mena, head of the Obstetrics Division of UMAE No. 3, pointed out that facing the defect before delivery is essential: “We seek to ensure that the newborn does not depend on a wheelchair and can walk like any other child, in addition to preventing complications such as hydrocephalus”.
By intervening during the prenatal period, doctors achieve close the lesion layer by layer down to the skin and place a dura mater patch to reconstruct the spinal cord.
The procedure required the collaboration of anesthesiologists, obstetrician-gynecologists, fetal surgeons, neonatal neurosurgeons and nursing staff. The director of UMAE No. 3, Zarela Lizbeth Chinolla Arellanoemphasized the priority focus on the fetus, who constitutes the main patient during the intervention.
She detailed the applied technique: After making an incision in the mother’s uterus, specialists accessed the baby to repair the defect before birth, guaranteeing complete closure of the spinal column.
Fetal surgery provides crucial advantages over an intervention performed after birth, by avoiding sequelae such as urinary or fecal incontinence, weakness in the lower limbs and neurological damage.
Chinolla highlighted the institutional meaning of this medical act: “For the IMSS, it is a clear example of the commitment to the right to health, life and integral development from the womb.”
Since 2022, the UMAE Hospital de Gineco Obstetricia No. 3 has performed more than one hundred fetal surgeries, positioning itself as a national reference center within advanced maternal-fetal medicine.
In the words of Dr. Chinolla, “each of these interventions represents the opportunity for a pregnancy to reach term and for the baby to go directly home, without requiring multiple subsequent surgeries. Our goal is to help as many families as possible.”
