Surgeons specialized in spina bifida repair surgery performed the first fetal surgery at the Children's Hospital.

According to Social Security, to carry out this procedure it was necessary to assemble a team of specialists from the public hospitals, Nacional de Niños and San Juan de Dios.

Additionally, this surgery had the support of a center specializing in this type of surgery in Mexico.

This is the first surgery of its kind performed in the country, where the patient was a fetus of 27 weeks of gestation. And through open surgery, it was possible to repair a myelomeningocele located in the patient's lower back.

Spina bifida is a birth defect in which there is incomplete closing of the spine and the membranes around the spinal cord during early development in pregnancy. There are three main types: spina bifida occulta, meningocele and myelomeningocele.

After a diagnosis that determined the urgency of the operation, specialists from both hospitals performed surgery on the mother and the baby. They managed to eliminate the baby's congenital malformation without stopping its development in the womb.

Surgery consists of operating on the baby by opening the mother's abdomen and uterus. Subsequently, the surgeries repair the congenital malformation. Finally, it is closed from the mother's uterus and abdomen so that the pregnancy period continues.

This surgical procedure lasted approximately three hours, with more than 50 doctors in the different stages of the process.

The surgeons' experience in performing this type of surgery required more than five years of training at hospitals in Barcelona, London, Chicago and Houston.

The surgery was performed on Jan. 12, but it was not until Tuesday that Social Security released the new operating technique.

The baby was born on Feb. 1 and is in good health, authorities said.

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