Fetal

Mycaela Scalzo and Donovan Martin, parents of one with another on the way, were going to their 20-week ultrasound appointment with the typical feelings of anxiousness and excitement parents have. During this appointment, the baby’s size, organs and overall health are checked. But Mycaela and Donovan’s excitement soon turned to fear. During the check-up, an unknown mass was found on their baby’s face. The provider suspected it was oral teratoma – a noncancerous but still potentially dangerous tumor that could block the baby’s airway, create feeding issues and more.

If you see baby August today, it would be hard to tell the difficult road he’s already been on in his young life. Diagnosed in utero with Ebstein anomaly, August’s was able to beat the odds thanks to a comprehensive and multidisciplinary team of health care professionals.

If you see baby August today, it would be hard to tell the difficult road he’s already been on in his young life. But just weeks before he was born, August had already been on quite the medical journey.

Cuando Saida llevó a su hijo Joshua a Children’s Minnesota, pensó que solo tenía un fuerte caso de gripe. Sin embargo, nunca se imaginó que la situación se iba a convertir en algo que ningún padre desearía que ocurriera. Poco después de ingresar al hospital, Saida recibió la noticia de que su hijo de siete años iba a necesitar un nuevo corazón.

The Midwest Fetal Care Center (MWFCC), a collaboration between Children’s Minnesota and Allina Health, is participating in a large multicenter National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study targeting improved surveillance and care for pregnant women with anti-SSA/Ro antibodies who are at risk for fetal heart block.

We met Declyn in December 2019 when he was 16 months old. When Declyn’s mom was still pregnant, she found out that she would need to undergo fetal surgery at only 24 weeks in order to repair an opening in Declyn’s spine. Now, Declyn is 3 years old and his smile lights up a room. Let's catch up!

Congenital heart disease is a heart problem that develops in the womb, before a baby is born. The word congenital means “present from birth.” Many different heart problems are associated with congenital heart disease, from holes in the walls of the heart to more severe defects, such as underdeveloped pumping chambers. These problems can affect the structure, function, and/or rhythm of the heart and therefore interfere with the normal flow of blood through the baby’s body. Congenital heart disease is the most common type of birth defect. Each year, about 40,000 babies are born in the United States with a heart problem. One in four of these babies have critical congenital heart disease, a condition serious enough to require surgery or other medical procedures during their first year of life.

A multiple pregnancy is a pregnancy with two or more babies. In some multiple pregnancies, the babies develop from different eggs (fraternal); in others, they develop from the same egg (identical). When the babies are fraternal, each has a separate placenta (whose fetal part is called the chorion) and separate amniotic sacs. These are known as dichorionic-diamniotic twins. The babies may be boys, girls, or a combination of both. Like siblings born from different pregnancies, these babies may (or may not) look very similar to each other. Depending on when the fertilized egg splits, identical twins may also be dichorionic-diamniotic. Usually, however, the babies share a placenta and have separate sacs. These are known as monochorionic-diamniotic twins. About 75 percent of all identical twins fall into this category. In rare cases, identical babies share both a single placenta and a single amniotic sac. These are known as monochorionic-monoamniotic twins. Because all identical babies share the same genetic material, they will be of the same gender and look alike, although they will have different personalities.