Jeslyn Lim is less than a month old and has successfully undergone a seven-hour-long surgery to remove a massive tumour that was bigger than her body, according to a Straits Times report.
The Chinese Indonesian baby arrived in Singapore earlier this week, and had the operation done on Friday (4 December) at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH).
Jeslyn suffered from a rare condition known as sacrococcygeal teratoma (SCT). This is a tumour that forms before birth and occurs in one in 35,000 to 40,000 live births.
The tumour, which was located at the bottom of her back, was so heavy that it caused the infant to weigh 7.3kg at birth. An average newborn weighs about 3.5kg.
The little girl’s condition was made even more complex by atrial septal defect, which is a hole in the muscular wall of her heart. This results in less oxygen going to her brain, organs and tissue.
And because the tumour was made up mostly of solid tissue that was fed by blood, her tiny heart, which had to work doubly hard, was immensely strained.
Reports say that doctors had told the newborn’s parents that she only had an 80 percent chance of surviving the operation. But beating the odds, this little fighter certainly made it through.
Jeslyn will recover from her operation for a week at KKH and will return to Singapore once a month for check-ups.
Her mother, Novi Ratna Sari has expressed to The Straits Times how happy and relieved she is that the operation was a success.
As fellow mums, we feel her relief and wish her family and little Jeslyn all the best.
Watch the Strait Times video report on little Jeslyn’s condition below:
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