From Daily Mail:
“A premature baby born with an incomplete esophagus is the smallest ever to survive with the condition.
Harper Jacobo and her sister Gabriella weighed just 1lb (0.45kg) when they were born at 23 weeks in Alliance, Nebraska in February 2021.
Harper (l) and Gabriella at about 1 year old.
After birth. the twins were rushed 250 miles to a specialist Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children in Denver, Colorado, where doctors found the tube between Harper’s mouth and stomach had failed to connect.
Doctors carried out surgery before using magnets to successfully bring the two parts of the esophagus together.
Dr Steven Rothenberg, chief of pediatric surgery at the hospital, said Harper was the ‘smallest baby ever to be born with this [condition] to survive’.
The condition — known as esophageal atresia — occurs when the upper and lower part of the esophagus fail to connect.
It occurs in about one in 4,100 babies born in the U.S., although most babies survive the condition.
It is not clear what causes it, but scientists have suggested the condition could be down to abnormalities in the genes, pointing out that many sufferers also have problems with their digestive system, heart and kidneys.
Harper spent the first year of her life in hospital receiving treatment before finally being discharged.
Gabriella was not born with the birth defect, and was discharged earlier into her family’s care.
Parents Kayla Hatch and Victor Jacobo have thanked doctors for keeping their babies alive.
‘To see them breathing, kicking… it’s just truly awesome,’ Jacobo said.
Fighting back tears, he added: ‘We just can’t thank everyone enough for being there and helping us through these trying times.
‘For the rest of my life, I’m going to be thanking them.’
Read the whole story here.
DCG