{"id":157025,"date":"2016-11-23T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=157025"},"modified":"2016-11-21T09:46:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T14:46:59","slug":"miracle-baby-becomes-first-us-survive-without-trachea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/miracle-baby-becomes-first-us-survive-without-trachea\/","title":{"rendered":"Miracle baby becomes first in the U.S. to survive without a trachea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Richards had just given birth to her son Thomas when she and her husband Corey realized something was wrong. Thomas was blue and his body was limp. He didn’t make a sound.<\/p>\n

Placed on his mother’s chest, they waited for him to take his first breath and turn pink. He didn’t. Instead, nurses placed a bag mask on his face to attempt to force air into his lungs. It worked, but not well enough. Next, they tried to place a breathing tube, but it wouldn’t go in.<\/p>\n

Thomas was rushed to emergency surgery, and the couple soon learned that their son had tracheal agenesis, a condition in which no trachea, or windpipe, develops. He was only receiving a tiny amount of air through a small passageway into his lungs. The condition is almost always fatal.<\/p>\n

But that wouldn’t be true for Thomas. He has become the first person in the United States to ever survive. Only five others exist in the world.<\/p>\n

The doctors weren’t sure what to do, but one doctor, Katie Dominguez, thought she knew people who would. She called Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin to speak with two surgeons there. They had never heard of a baby without a trachea, but they created a plan to help him.<\/p>\n

Thomas was originally placed on a ventilator, but the air was mostly going to his stomach. Dr. Dominguez clamped his esophagus just above the stomach, forcing the air through that small passageway. She wasn’t sure it would work. \u00a0Then she installed a feeding tube into his stomach and sent Thomas by ambulance to Children’s Hospital. She went home, concerned he wouldn’t survive the trip there, but he did.<\/p>\n

Dr. John Densmore, a pediatric surgeon, delivered the official diagnosis to the new parents, and he didn’t hold back when explaining the condition.<\/p>\n

“Dr. Densmore was like brutally honest with everything and told us that well what Thomas is going through really, there is really no survival rate,” Richards told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/a>. “It’s like a most nearly fatal in all cases.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Densmore told the couple that without surgery, Thomas would die, but with it, he had a much better chance at surviving.<\/p>\n

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