Doctors perform surgery on the brain of a fetus while it is in its mother's womb

American doctors have succeeded in performing surgery on the brain of a fetus in the womb of its mother, to treat a rare medical condition, the first in the world.

Surgeons at Boston Children's Hospital and Brigham Hospital in Massachusetts used surgical technique to treat a congenital malformation known as Gallenus vein malformation, which causes heart failure and stroke-like symptoms days after birth.

Using ultrasound, doctors were able to treat the deformity that causes blood to flow very quickly through part of the brain, the first such condition to be treated in this way.

Darren Auerbach, a neuroradiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said that after the operation and delivery, the baby did not experience the blood flow that usually happens to those with the deformity.

According to Russia Today, Auerbach and his colleagues performed the operation on a fetus at 34 weeks of pregnancy, and used ultrasound to guide them through the procedure. The baby was born two days later, because the process leads to rupture of the membranes in the uterus, and the baby is born prematurely.

Because the birth was premature, the baby was taken to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit for several weeks, during which time doctors continued to monitor her brain.

Auerbach revealed that the baby is now six weeks old, does not take any medications, eats normally and gains weight, and does not suffer any negative effects on her brain.

The doctors confirmed that the baby girl was monitored in the neonatal intensive care unit for several weeks before being discharged from the hospital to the house, explaining that during this period, the infant underwent a normal neurological examination and did not show any clots, fluid accumulation or bleeding on MRI scans of the brain.