Baby girl 'born twice' after doctors cut her from womb to remove tumour

A baby girl in the US has been born twice, after doctors removed her from her mother’s uterus at 23 weeks to perform a lifesaving operation then reinserted her back inside the womb.

Margaret Boemer was 16 weeks pregnant with her daughter when she was told her baby had a tumour growing in her tailbone, known as a sacrococcygeal teratoma.

Dr Darrell Cass, co-director of Texas Children’s Fetal Center, said the tumour was large and was growing by sucking the blood supply from the baby, causing the fetus to become increasingly ill.

"And in some instances, the tumor wins and the heart just can't keep up and the heart goes into failure and the baby dies," Dr Cass said.

For Mrs Boemer, the choice to go ahead with the risky operation was simple.

"It was an easy decision for us: We wanted to give her life,” she told CNN.

The emergency procedure to remove the tumour took five hours. On the day of the operation, the tumour was almost bigger than the fetus.

In the first ‘birth’, the baby was taken out of the womb and had her heart rate lowered to the point where “it basically stopped”, Dr Cass said.

“Essentially, the fetus is outside, like completely out, all the amniotic fluid falls out, it's actually fairly dramatic," he said.

The team of surgeons was able to remove most of the growth, before placing the baby back inside the womb and sewing Mrs Boemer’s uterus closed.

Twelve weeks later, little Lynlee Hope Boemer was born for the second time, delivered by caesarian section.

Essentially a healthy, full-term bub, Lynlee still had to undergo further surgery at eight days old to remove small traces of the tumour that remained from the first operation.

Now four months old, Lynlee is at home and on the road to recovery.

“It was very difficult,” her mother said of the operation, but “it was worth every pain”.