SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Diagnosed before birth with a spinal defect, three babies have kicked their legs, wiggled their toes and blown away their parents and a team of researchers at UC Davis Health who developed a novel approach to treat them.
While still in the womb, each child was diagnosed with spina bifida, a condition that often leaves a section of a newborn’s spinal cord exposed and unprotected by the backbone. Babies born with the defect can have intellectual and physical disabilities that range from mild to severe, depending on how big of a hole they have in their spines, where it is and the impact on the spinal cord or nerves.
For 25 years now, Dr. Diana Farmer has been working on ways to treat this prenatal defect. She launched a clinical trial in the spring of last year on a new treatment that pairs surgery with stem cell implantation. Early results have left her enthused, though she said there’s still a long way to go.
