Iraqi baby arrives in US for medical treatment

By Karen Jacobs

ATLANTA (Reuters) – An Iraqi baby with a life-threatening
birth defect arrived in the United States on Saturday for
medical treatment after being sent by U.S. soldiers who found
her during a raid on her family’s home.

The baby, 3-month-old Noor, was taken by ambulance to
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a pediatric hospital that is
donating surgery and other care for the infant, after flying
into Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Noor was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which
the spinal column fails to completely close, leaving part of
the spinal cord exposed and susceptible to life-threatening
infection. She has a large growth on her back.

Roger Hudgins, the hospital’s chief of neurosurgery, said
the baby would stay at the hospital overnight for a general
evaluation of her condition.

“It’s going to take a number of days (to evaluate) if
things are stable,” Hudgins said at a news conference at the
airport. “This child is coming from a foreign country so we
need to make sure that she’s healthy and capable of
withstanding surgery.”

He said surgery to close the back of child’s spinal column
was tentatively scheduled to take place in about a week, but
added that doctors could operate sooner if examinations uncover
complications.

Hudgins said although the surgery would be a “significant
undertaking,” he thought Noor’s chances of survival were good.
The surgery to close the spinal column would take three hours,
he added. If successful, the baby could likely return home in
one or two months.

Noor, wearing an orange suit and carried by her
grandmother, arrived to cheers at the airport. The baby’s
father also traveled to Atlanta.

Her path to the United States began earlier this month when
soldiers with the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade
Combat Team searched her family’s home in a poor Baghdad
neighborhood, looking for insurgents.

They found none, but the baby’s grandmother showed the
soldiers the purple pouch protruding from the child’s back and
the soldiers sought help in finding her treatment.

Without intervention, Noor would have died, Hudgins said.

On Friday, the infant and her relatives were flown by the
U.S. military to Kuwait, where they boarded a commercial flight
to the United States.

Childspring International, a children’s medical charity,
helped set up the trip and arranged for Noor and her relatives
to stay with an Arabic-speaking family while the infant
undergoes medical treatment in Atlanta.