COLUMBUS, OH - Ohio doctors complete a rare procedure, done on a baby, who was still attached to her mother.
It happens only about a dozen times a year in the u-s....and only on babies who are in medical danger during birth.
While Janayah was still in the womb, she developed a mass on her neck that was pushing on her throat.
So doctors delivered Janayah about half-way and then stopped.
Then doctors put a small tube down her throat to make sure the baby could breathe on her own.
All of which was possible because her umbilical cord was still attached, which not only provided the baby with oxygen, but medicine too.
"The anesthesia doctors give medications which will go through that umbilical cord and let the baby relax and be pain-free," says Richard O'Shaughnessy, M.D., Ohio State University Medical Center.
When it was clear she could breathe on her own, the umbilical cord was cut and later doctors drained the mass.
There's still a mass on the baby's neck, but she's growing stronger and doing well with each day.
The treatment is called EXIT. It stands for Ex-Utero Intra-partum Treatment.
