When doctors discovered that an unborn baby was carrying a huge tumour that threatened her life, they knew that waiting until birth could be fatal.
The baby, Lynlee, was developing a rare tumour known as a sacrococcygeal teratoma, or SCT, near the base of her spine. The tumour was demanding an enormous blood supply and placing increasing pressure on her tiny heart.
The problem was complicated by her age. At roughly 23 weeks of pregnancy, Lynlee was not developed enough to safely face an extremely premature birth.
Doctors therefore considered an option that sounded almost impossible: operating on the baby before she was born.
A Nigerian-born surgeon, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, was among the specialists who helped make the procedure possible.
An Operation Inside the Womb
At Texas Children’s Hospital, Olutoye and Dr. Darrell Cass co-led a multidisciplinary medical team preparing for the delicate operation.
The surgeons opened the mother’s uterus and carefully brought the fetus partially outside the womb while maintaining the connection between the baby and placenta.
This allowed Lynlee to continue receiving oxygen and blood while the medical team worked.
The tumour was then surgically reduced, with approximately 90 percent removed.
The operation was extremely risky. Doctors had to protect the mother, avoid serious blood loss and ensure that the baby remained stable throughout the procedure.
After completing the operation, the team did something equally remarkable: they returned Lynlee to the womb rather than delivering her.
The uterus was closed and the pregnancy continued.
Three More Months Changed Everything
Those additional weeks proved crucial.
Lynlee continued developing inside her mother’s womb until she reached approximately 36 weeks, when doctors delivered her by Caesarean section.
Her unusual journey later earned her the widely used description “the baby born twice.”
Although she was not literally born twice, the phrase reflected the extraordinary sequence of her treatment—she was surgically brought out of the womb, treated and returned before eventually being born months later.
A Story of Medical Courage
The case highlighted the possibilities of fetal surgery, an area of medicine that allows specialists to treat selected serious conditions before birth.
Such procedures remain highly complex and are undertaken only in carefully selected circumstances because they can involve substantial risks to both mother and baby.
For Olutoye, the operation represented another milestone in a career dedicated to pediatric and fetal surgery.
Born in Nigeria, he went on to establish himself internationally in a field requiring highly specialised skills and close collaboration between different medical disciplines.
Lynlee’s story is therefore not simply about an unusual operation. It is also about the determination of her family and the coordinated efforts of a medical team that took an extraordinary chance to give an unborn child more time to grow.
The case remains one of the memorable examples of how modern medicine can intervene before birth—and how, in extraordinary circumstances, saving a life can begin inside the womb.
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