A Perth baby was born with rare condition that meant she couldn’t breathe, so a surgeon turned to 3D printing to solve the problem.
Although Sophia was born safely and the delivery went well, her mother Brooke Seidel, didn’t hear her cry.
‘It’s not an easy sight when you see a minute old baby and they’re doing compressions on her chest,’ Brooke told Today Tonight.
‘We didn’t know if she was going to make it’.
A Perth baby (pictured) was born with rare condition that meant she couldn’t breathe, so a surgeon turned to 3D printing to solve the problem
Sophia couldn’t breathe and she was placed on a ventilator so doctors could figure out what was wrong.
Scans soon revealed she was born with complete blockage of the nose due to bone fusing over Sophia’s naval cavity.
Dr Jenn Han, a surgeon for the Princess Mary Hospital, asked biomedical engineers to make a custom skull from plastic as she was worried about operating on someone so small so wanted to practice the surgery first.
‘She was born fairly small for her age as well and whether the instruments were going to fit in her nose was one of the most important considerations – whether I could do the surgery on such a small baby,’ she said.
Dr Jenn Han, a surgeon for the Princess Mary Hospital, asked biomedical engineers to make a custom skull from plastic as she was worried about operating on someone so small
The 3D skull allowed Dr Hann to test whether certain instruments would fit inside the skull and it revealed that normal surgical instruments would be too big.
This meant that she had to use tools that are typically used in surgeries involving small canals of the ear.
‘I was able to explain to Sophia’s parents exactly what condition it is because its so hard to draw for them to visualise what’s going on.
‘We could see exactly the scope of what needed to be done and to make sure that the surgeon had the right tools that would fit properly in her nose.’
This isn’t the first procedure baby Sophia had to go through but the parents live in hope that it was the last, although there could be more to come
Knowing all of this before the surgery meant that more time was saved and Sophia was able to spend less time under anaesthetic.
This isn’t the first procedure baby Sophia had to go through but the parents live in hope that it was the last, although there could be more to come.
Normally parents plaster their newborn’s feet and hands but Sophia has walked away with a one of a kind souvenir.