Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Pulmonary Sequestration

I have honestly been putting off writing about this. Mostly because we don't know much at this point about how this is going to evolve. On my 20 week ultrasound, we found out our baby girl has a pulmonary sequestration. There is more info here about what that is. To summarize in very simple terms, it's some lung cells that separated from the other lung cells in early development. It has it's own blood supply, but doesn't do anything. It does need to be removed by surgery after baby is born. How soon depends on how baby is handling having it in there. If it causes problems, it could need to come out immediately. If not, it would need to come out somewhere between 6-12 months. And while no one wants to hear that their newborn/baby will have to have surgery, in most cases, this is a treatable condition, and kids go on to have normal lung function. We are hoping for the best possible outcome, and trying to stay positive. Only time will tell how baby tolerates having it there, and if it will shrink, grow in size, or stay the same. It will be monitored monthly by ultrasound to make sure there is not a buildup of fluid in the chest cavity, and to make sure that it's not growing and causing problems to other organs. While the possibility exists of a few nasty complications, the risk for these is small. The specialist in town did say that currently it is bigger than what they usually see at 20 weeks, but this next ultrasound and subsequent ultrasounds could show changes, so treatment can only be determined as we see how things progress. So here's to a healthy baby! We appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

2 comments:

  1. We will definitely be praying for you and baby. As you already know. Love you......

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  2. I know EXACTLY how you feel! They found our daughters at my 20 week appt too and it was removed when she was 7 months old and is doing fantastic! We will continue to keep you in our prayers!

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