{"id":251721,"date":"2021-08-25T10:46:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T15:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=251721"},"modified":"2021-08-24T17:25:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T22:25:22","slug":"prenatal-surgery-toddler-breathing-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/prenatal-surgery-toddler-breathing-own\/","title":{"rendered":"With prenatal and post-birth surgeries, toddler with rare birth defect now breathing on his own"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

A three-year-old boy with a rare birth defect is finally able to breathe on his own and is learning to speak now, too. His journey to recovery began in the womb and has continued with expert surgeons who worked to reconstruct his windpipe so his tracheotomy tube could be removed.<\/p>\n

Jethro Quach was diagnosed with congenital high airway obstruction syndrome (CHAOS) before he was born, at just 21 weeks gestation. It’s an extremely rare condition, with less than 50 cases recorded in the United States. After a fetal echocardiogram, doctors realized he had tissue blocking his trachea, just below the vocal cords, which would mean he couldn’t breathe at birth. His parents were devastated.<\/p>\n

David and Jennifer Quach had a long journey to build the family they longed for. \u201cWe were ready to start a family right away,\u201d Jennifer said in a press release<\/a> for Linda Loma University Health, explaining that conceiving Jethro was a miracle for them. \u201cWe prayed and prayed for him.”<\/p>\n

But the diagnosis of CHAOS meant another scary step: an in-utero surgery at 24 weeks, when Jethro was the size of a cantaloupe.<\/p>\n