Fetal surgery

Find a fetal care specialist

If your baby develops a health problem before birth, it affects the whole family. At the Center for Fetal Care, our fetal surgeons and their teams are ready to help.

The fetal surgeons on our team have years of training in high-risk pregnancy care. They also have extensive experience in the latest minimally invasive approaches and open surgeries for prenatal treatment.

Learn more about:

Expertise in prenatal care

Our fetal surgeons provide a complete range of care for mothers with high-risk pregnancies and their developing babies. Families can trust our fetal surgery expertise because we offer:

Team approach: Our fetal surgeons are maternal-fetal medicine specialists who have extra training in high-risk pregnancy care. They work closely with our neonatologists and pediatric specialists to provide complete care for babies diagnosed prenatally with conditions that need treatment before or after birth.
First center in Illinois to perform complex twin surgery: Our fetal surgeons were the first in Illinois to perform surgery for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Learn more about fetal conditions that affect twins.
Exceptional support backed by research: Our center was the first in the state to be accepted into the North American Fetal Therapy Network, an organization supporting fetal medicine research. We stay at the forefront of the latest innovations to improve care and quality of life.

What is fetal surgery?

Fetal surgery includes open surgery and minimally invasive procedures for health problems diagnosed before birth. Thanks to ongoing research, new technology and sophisticated procedures, fetal surgeons can now safely and effectively treat a growing number of such conditions.

Earlier treatment with fetal surgery can help babies make a more stable transition at birth, so they’re ready for additional care afterward. In many cases, fetal surgery can minimize the effects of many congenital conditions.

Our fetal surgeons have exceptional expertise in fetal surgery techniques and procedures to treat many health problems before birth. For babies who need additional treatment after birth, we coordinate your baby’s care with neonatal and pediatric specialists in all fields of medicine at Advocate Children’s Hospital.

Minimally invasive fetoscopic procedures

In a fetal surgery called fetoscopy, our surgeons use a small incision in the mother’s abdomen to access the fetus for treatment. The surgeon inserts the fetoscope, a narrow, flexible tube with a camera and light at the tip. We use ultrasound imaging to guide the fetoscope through the uterus to treat the fetus.

In pregnancies involving twins, the fetuses often share a blood supply through the placenta. Sometimes, one twin receives more blood than the other. Our surgeons use SFLP, also known as ablation, to treat blood vessel connections between the twins to help them both develop properly. Learn more about surgery for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS)

Our fetal surgeons perform a procedure that helps your baby’s lungs grow and develop in the last weeks of pregnancy. This fetal surgery can treat congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), an opening in the muscle that divides the chest from the abdomen. Organs such as the intestines or liver push up through the opening into the chest, preventing proper lung growth.

During pregnancy, your baby’s lungs produce fluid that exits through the mouth. Blocking this flow keeps fluid inside the lungs, helping them expand and grow so they’re large enough at birth to provide oxygen. Our surgeons block the fluid by placing a tiny balloon in your baby’s windpipe. They remove it several weeks later, when the lungs have developed more.

Fetal surgeons and neurosurgeons partner for a fetoscopy to repair a severe form of spina bifida called myelomeningocele (MMC). Doing so greatly reduces the symptoms that a child experiences later in life.

In utero spina bifida repair helps improve a baby’s quality of life in several ways:

Reduces the risk of further spinal cord damage due to exposure to amniotic fluid (fluid that surrounds the fetus in the uterus)
Improves the chances that the child can walk independently

Reduces the risk of leaking cerebrospinal fluid, liquid that surrounds and protects the brain and spinal cord

During pregnancy, the placenta can develop cysts, including a type called chorioangioma. Although chorioangiomas are benign (not cancerous), they can cause problems if they get too big.

Our surgeons perform fetoscopy to seal off the main blood vessels that feed a placental tumor, reducing its blood supply. The tumor begins to shrink and die.

Open fetal surgery in utero

Open fetal surgery involves a long incision in the abdomen and another in the uterus to provide treatment. Fetal surgeons use a special device to control bleeding as they complete the procedure and close the incisions. Mothers stay in the hospital for four to five days in case of any complications.

We perform open fetal surgery to:

Repair a myelomeningocele
Remove large congenital pulmonary airway malformations (CPAMs), a common type of fetal lung mass
Remove large sacrococcygeal teratomas (SCTs), a spinal tumor

Ex utero intrapartum treatment during delivery

Our fetal surgeons may perform a special procedure to deliver your baby called EXIT (ex utero intrapartum treatment). They do so to provide treatment while your baby is still attached to the placenta. An EXIT procedure is an open surgery, with a hospital recovery of three to four days.

We can treat a variety of conditions by combining EXIT with other procedures, including:

EXIT to airway: We can perform a tracheotomy (incision in the windpipe) to remove an airway blockage in newborns.
EXIT to ECMO: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a machine that temporarily takes over lung function in newborns to stabilize them for further treatment.
EXIT to resection: For large masses or tumors that would prevent your baby from getting oxygen when they're born, we can remove the mass during an EXIT procedure.

Fetal conditions we treat with EXIT include: