HOUSTON – Camille doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already a fighter.
At just 24 weeks in the womb, she underwent a groundbreaking surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston — a procedure that doctors say has never been performed anywhere else in the United States. Today, she’s three months old, hitting every developmental milestone, and giving her parents in Lafayette, Louisiana something they once weren’t sure they’d have: hope.
The Diagnosis That Devastated a Family
When Caitlin Kidder was pregnant, she received news no expectant mother wants to hear. Her unborn daughter had been diagnosed with gastroschisis — a serious birth defect where a baby’s intestines develop outside the abdomen through an opening in the abdominal wall.
But Camille’s case wasn’t just any gastroschisis. It was the complex form — and the statistics are sobering.
- About 1 in 10 babies with complex gastroschisis does not survive
- Those who do can spend months in neonatal intensive care
- Some babies require intravenous nutrition for up to two years
- Multiple surgeries are often unavoidable
“It was just devastating,” Caitlin recalled.
The Second Look That Saved Camille’s Life
Before the family ever made it to Houston, a doctor back home in Louisiana made a decision that changed everything — she took a second look at Camille’s prenatal scans…