Brit mum-to-be flew to Texas for pioneering 'lifeline' surgery on unborn baby still in womb

Brit mum-to-be flew to Texas for pioneering 'lifeline' surgery on unborn baby still in womb Maisie Savage went in for a routine pregnancy check up but discovered her unborn baby had a rare condition - the London mum flew to Texas for a surgery only two other women have done A British mum had pioneering surgery on her unborn baby whose intestines were growing outside of his body while he was still in her womb. London teacher Maisie Savage, 29, was 26 weeks pregnant when doctors in the US operated on her baby while he was still inside her womb. Baby Theo, who is healthy and now five months old, had a defect called gastroschisis which led to his belly button not forming as it should have. This caused the unborn baby's intestines to grow outside of his body so doctors carried out a ground-breaking operation to move Theo's intestines back into his abdomen, all before he was born. Theo is just the third baby in the world to undergo this incredible clinical trial. Doctors in the UK discovered the unborn baby had the most complex form of gastroschisis after the mums routine 20 week anomaly scan, according to the BBC. She was sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital who then referred her to Texas Children's Hospital, in Houston, where the team of doctors had started trials for a procedure to correct the defect before birth. This would have prevented baby Theo from having to undergo surgeries after he was born. The teacher said: "When we did hear about the trial it was almost like ok we've been given this lifeline, this amazing opportunity." She added: "As soon as we found out that we had this chance for him to have a normal start to life we said 'yeah, no worries we are going to go'." Maisie was told 24 weeks into her pregnancy that she would need to travel to Texas and stay there for the remainder of her pregnancy. Before this, Maisie had to go to the Leuven Hospital in Belgium for doctors to inject Botox through her womb into her baby's abdominal wall so the surgery would be easier to carry out. The mum and Theo's dad Josh French, 36, then flew to Texas and the pioneering operation was carried out in November. Josh told the BBC: "The length of that day, it felt like a week. The waiting and just not knowing exactly what was going on at each and every stage." The pioneering procedure involved surgeons exposing part of the mother's womb and removing it slightly from the abdomen, through keyhole surgery. Medics drained it of amniotic fluid then filled her womb with CO2 gas, which would open up the womb to give doctors more space. The baby's organs were then pushed back into his abdomen then stitched up. Maisie's abdomen was also stitched up, after her womb was moved back into position, and the mum was left with a scar on her belly. The surgery was successful and Theo was born in February. The mum, speaking on BBC's Today programme, said: "He's feeding like a normal baby, growing like a normal baby. He's great." Dr Michael Belfort, who led the medical team behind the procedure, said they were happy with the results and said: "The mother, the baby, the surgery, the time of the surgery, the fact that we had zero complications during the foetal surgery and after the foetal surgery, just remarkable." Belfort added that this incredible surgery could become available in the UK if the trials are a success. Paolo de Coppi, professor of paediatric surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "We hope that we will be able to offer this to patients in a larger scale very soon."