Fetal Care Chat: Women in Fetal Medicine
Fetal Health Foundation founder and Fetal Care Chat host, Lonnie Somers welcomes three amazing pioneering women in fetal medicine. Dr. Jenan Miller, Dr. Courtney Stephenson, and Dr. Diana Farmer.
Fetal Health Foundation founder and Fetal Care Chat host, Lonnie Somers welcomes three amazing pioneering women in fetal medicine. Dr. Jenan Miller, Dr. Courtney Stephenson, and Dr. Diana Farmer.
The annual reunion brings together a unique community of families who have shared similar struggles. Nearly all the children in attendance had been prenatally diagnosed with a birth defect, such as spina bifida, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or twin-twin transfusion syndrome, that had potentially devastating outcomes.
“The doctor came in and handed me a box of tissues,” Katie recalls. “She was saying something about an abnormal pregnancy, shunts, abnormalities of the left leg, club foot. I was in complete shock at that point, and I couldn’t really make out what she was saying because it felt like time was suspended.”
In a span of two hours, their lives had been turned upside down.
Cincinnati Children’s, a national leader in prenatal myelomeningocele surgery, recently conducted their 100th prenatal surgical repair. Kelly Song’s daughter was diagnosed with spina bifida at 20 weeks. Read more:
With the CIRM funding, the UC Davis team will be able to launch their one-of-a-kind treatment in the coming months. It will be delivered while the baby is still in the mother’s womb (in utero). The complex procedure, with its unique use of a stem cell “patch,” could improve outcomes for children who are born with the severe form of spina bifida known as myelomeningocele.