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technofuture8 OP t1_iwjhe5o wrote

Reply to comment by widget1321 in World’s first stem cell treatment for spina bifida delivered during fetal surgery, in California. Three babies have been born after receiving the world’s first spina bifida treatment combining surgery with stem cells. by technofuture8

The scientist in either the youtube vids or the podcast said that the baby was expected to be born paralyzed but it came out kicking it's legs and wiggling it's toes. Anyhow they're going to treat 35 babies so we'll see how they turn out. Hopefully it's world changing.

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widget1321 t1_iwjlpqa wrote

>The scientist in either the youtube vids or the podcast said that the baby was expected to be born paralyzed

Yes, the baby has SB, the average person with SB is paralyzed to some extent.

>but it came out kicking it's legs and wiggling it's toes.

And that is wonderful. Hopefully they can see that with kids with high defects, but we will see how the study goes.

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technofuture8 OP t1_iwjnrna wrote

Fingers crossed. They also hope this will cure the bowel and bladder problems too, as I believe that the surgery alone doesn't do much for the incontinence?

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widget1321 t1_iwjpf9r wrote

It usually doesn't, no. I'm not exactly sure of the details, but because the nerves that control the bladder and bowels are so low on the spine, almost every SB kid will have issues with that. I don't know if it's because that location makes them easily damaged, if it's just because they are usually the first damaged, if it's that any damage above that point causes the issues, or something else (and the good that the current surgeries do for the paralysis is by preventing further damage to the nerves that would normally occur between surgery date and birth).

If this actually repairs the nerves, I wonder if that's true in reverse (so bladder/bowel would be least likely/last to be fixed) or if they might have cases where bladder/bowel issues don't occur, but you still get paralysis. I don't know enough to predict it at all, just wildly speculating and curious there.

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