In Lviv, doctors saved a child with congenital Pierre-Robin syndrome: details

Emilia with her mother and doctors

“Okhmatdit” Hospital

Doctors saved little Emilia from Transcarpathia. The girl was born with Pierre-Robin syndrome and cleft soft and hard palate.

Pierre-Robin syndrome is rare defect of the maxillofacial area with pronounced underdevelopment of the lower jaw is an ailment that occurs in one child out of 10-30 thousand newborns, point out in Lviv “Okhmatdyt”.

Such a defect causes asphyxia, a pathological condition in which the body does not receive a sufficient amount of oxygen.

The girl was brought to the medical facility immediately after birth. She was in an extremely difficult condition. To facilitate breathing and swallowing, the girl was fitted with a tracheostomy, a special tube that is inserted into the front wall of the trachea.

According to doctors, babies with this syndrome have problems swallowing. If they manage to swallow once or twice, then food or liquid can get into the respiratory tract. This often leads to the development of aspiration pneumonia.

“The child was in the intensive care unit on artificial lung ventilation (VLT), because he arrived in an extremely serious condition. We eliminated this aspiration syndrome.

Then she ate only through a nasogastric tube – a tube inserted into the stomach through the nose. She lived with her for 10 months.”– said the orthopedic surgeon Oleg Lyniv.

Oral and maxillofacial surgeon Khrystyna Pogranichna explained that Emilia could not breathe on her own because her tongue sunk in, blocking her airways. The only way to relieve the child’s condition was to constantly lay him on his stomach.

So when the little patient was 9 months old, she underwent surgery to close her cleft palate.

“It is very difficult to choose the optimal age for surgery on the palate. On the one hand, you want to eliminate the congenital defect as soon as possible so that the child can eat normally, and on the other hand, there is a threat of difficulty breathing and swallowing, because the nasopharynx and oropharynx are narrowed.” said surgeon Roman Ogonovskyi.

Two months after the surgery, Emilia’s tracheostomy was removed. Although the situation was difficult, the medical team managed to restore the child’s sucking reflex and establish independent nutrition. Now she must be under the constant supervision of specialists.

We will remind, Kyiv doctors saved a boy who swallowed 20 magnets.