A baby born with a part of his brain out of doors of his skull becomes the first to survive a unique operation , make him the only newborn with the rare , normally fatal condition to live more than a day after birth .
Ten weeks into his mother ’s pregnancy , Lucas was diagnose with exencephaly – a life - jeopardise neurologic condition where the skull does not form properly and leaves the brain exposed to the “ intrauterine surroundings ” of a mother ’s womb . This exposure causes physical and mental damage , and doctors typically recommend that mothers give the axe the pregnancy . Even if the sister is carried to term , most will not live on the daytime . Maria Santa Maria , Lucas ’ female parent , decided against an abortion and said she had machinate her three daughters for the nascency .
" When we were in the delivery way because I wanted them to run across their baby brother , so we did n’t make love what to expect . So , they come in in , they were told their baby brother was going to die , " she toldABC7 .
“ After only a week in the NICU , he was able to go home eating and breathing on his own . Each sidereal day he has is a blessing , ” say operating doc Tim Vogel in aFacebook mail .
Lucas is now seven month old and has defied the betting odds against him . However , doctors are not sure how long he will live or what his quality of life will be . Exencephaly is a rare malformation of a vacuous structure where the brainpower and spinal cord finally shape , or theneural tube . Neural pipe defect are thethird most commoncongenital mental defectiveness in the US , second only to cardiac misshapenness . Though facial structures and the al-Qaida of the brain are still present , babies with exencephaly are characterise by bulge out eyeballs and having brain tissue paper protruding from where the skullcap is omit . The exact cause is not known but the condition occurs in about3 per 10,000 pregnanciesscreened , make it an early pregnancy precursor toanencephaly , a serious birth fault where a infant is tolerate without parts of the brain and skull . Exencephaly causes destruction of the developing psyche by picture to amniotic fluid and repeated trauma that , in some cases , can demolish the brain as early as eight workweek gestation .
Most babies diagnosed with exencephaly are stillborn ; however , a live full - term foetus was born in 2009 before fail three hours later . According to an article release in theJournal of Pediatric Neurosciences , an autopsy revealed the brain was covered in a thick membrane , was egotistic in several piece , and had “ tortuous blood vessel ” .
[ H / T : ABC7andCNN ]
