Word: fetus
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...showed the extent to which the baby's Rh-positive cells were being destroyed by antibody from the Rh-negative mother. If the damage was moderate, obstetricians delivered the baby prematurely and gave it transfusions of Rh-negative blood. But if the fluid showed severe damage when the fetus was still too premature for delivery, the obstetrician could only sit back and wait for a malign nature to take its course...
...better-"You couldn't possibly do any harm to the baby, because it couldn't be worse off than it already was." And if it was all right to push a hypodermic needle into the bag of waters, why not keep going and push it into the fetus' abdomen? At National Women's Hospital in Auckland, he did just that. Through the bore of the heavy-gauge needle, he then inserted a thin plastic tube. And through this he injected red cells, Rh-negative like the mother's, to replace the baby...
Also at Columbia, Dr. Karlis Adamsons Jr. decided that as valuable as the Liley technique may be, it is still too little and too late in too many cases. What the fetus may need, he reasoned, is a massive, virtually total exchange transfusion. But how to give it? In one case, Dr. Adamsons boldly cut through the mother's abdominal wall and enough of the uterus to expose the fetus' abdomen and one leg. He cut into the fetus' groin and put a plastic catheter in the femoral artery. Through this tube he withdrew much...
...Adamsons has since tried another approach. He has cut into the uterus and into the fetus' peritoneal cavity, and there he has implanted an extremely fine catheter that can be left in place. All six fetuses operated on in this way continued to develop for a month or more; Dr. Adamsons and his colleagues are confident that eventually a way will be found to help the mothers carry them until they can survive normally...
Back in Auckland during Dr. Liley's absence, Surgeon Graham C. Liggins has found a way to insert a catheter through the bore of a hypodermic needle, then anchor it in the peritoneum in such a way that no matter how much the fetus squirms, the catheter will not pull out. Thus it can be left in place for repeated transfusions...