Smallest Baby To Survive A Separated Esophagus

Little Harper Jacobo has come a long way. She and her twin sister Gabriella were born prematurely at just 23 weeks, weighing less than 1/3 of a pound. They fit in the palms of my hand. They were very, very tiny. I mean very small. While both girls were small, it was Harper who was given just a 1% chance of survival when she was born. So by all means, really shouldn't have even survived delivery. But that wasn't the only obstacle little Harper faced. The two ends of her esophagus. Were separated by quite a bit so basically meaning that she could not swallow whatsoever the two ends separated by 7 centimeters that's about that long and a baby who's about this big so it's it's quite a gap. Pediatric surgeon Stephen Rothenberg LED A-Team at Rocky Mountain hospital for children performing three life saving surgeries on Harper the first one stretching the two ends to try to bring them together. We got the two ends almost together but there was still about maybe a. One inch gap between the two ends. Then he took part of Harper's chest wall to create a Band-Aid between the two ends, closing the gap to 1/2 an inch. Then he used magnets to finally bring the ends together. We put one magnet down her mouth and into the upper part of her esophagus, and we put the other magnet through her gastrostomy tubes. What happened over the next few days is the magnets gradually attracted each other, closing the gap, making Harper the smallest baby ever to survive a separated esophagus. I'm Marty Salt reporting.