Iraqi baby recovering after surgery in US
Posted on: Monday, 9 January 2006, 12:05 CST
ATLANTA (Reuters) - An Iraqi baby with a life-threatening birth defect was "doing well" and recovering on Monday after surgery, an Atlanta hospital said.
Three-month-old Noor was sent to the United States for medical treatment by members of Georgia's Army National Guard who came across her during a raid on her family's house in Iraq last month.
Noor, who arrived in Atlanta with her grandmother and father more than a week ago, had surgery to straighten out her spinal cord at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, a pediatric hospital that is providing free care for the infant.
The baby 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.
The hospital said Noor was "doing well" in a statement released shortly after the nearly three-hour surgery on Monday.
During the surgery, doctors made an incision on the fluid-filled growth on her back, located her spinal cord and moved it to its proper place, said Jennifer Sinclair, a spokeswoman at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Doctors then covered the back with skin.
"It looks like she will require the use of a wheelchair, that she may not be able to walk, but of course you don't want to say never," Sinclair said.
The baby's plight came to light when soldiers with the Georgia Army National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team searched her family's home in a poor Baghdad neighborhood last month, looking for insurgents.
They found none, but the baby's grandmother showed the soldiers a purple pouch protruding from the child's back and the soldiers sought help in finding her treatment. Without intervention, Noor would have died, doctors at the Atlanta hospital said.
A children's medical charity, Childspring International, helped organized Noor's trip to the United States and arranged for the baby and her relatives to stay in Atlanta.
Source: REUTERS
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