A mother and child are well after an Australian-first, spinal surgery on the baby while it was still in the womb.
A Queensland hospital has performed Australian-first spinal surgery on a baby diagnosed with spina bifida while it was still in the womb.
A team from the Mater Hospital in Brisbane operated on a 24-week-old in-utero baby on Saturday.
"The surgery went as well as we could have hoped and both mother and baby are doing well," director of maternal foetal medicine Glenn Gardener said.
Dr Gardener said while the surgery was not a cure for spina bifida, it did significantly improve the outcome for babies diagnosed with the condition.
Spina bifida is a serious birth defect that prevents a fetus's spine and spinal cord from developing normally.
It can lead to paralysis and other complications and is normally treated with surgery once a baby is born.
