Operated as an alarm clock for a brain tumor while breastfeeding her newborn son

She entered the operating room for a very delicate operation, carried out while awake, with her newborn son in her arms, who she breastfed during the operation. A young mother from the Marches had a brain tumor removed, and at that moment the doctors allowed her to keep her two-month-old son next to her. It happened on June 13 at the regional hospital of Torrette di Ancona. At the center of the story is, in fact, a woman who recently became a mother who had received the diagnosis of the disease during pregnancy.

The team in action

The operation was carried out by a multidisciplinary team from the University Hospital of the Marche, led by Robert Trignanihead of the general neurosurgery department with particular pediatric interest, which included neurosurgeons Stefano Vecchioni And Michael Luzithe neuroanaesthetist Edward Barboni and the neuropsychologist Silvia Bonifaziprofessionals known for using ‘in awake’ neurosurgical procedures.

“These surgical procedures have the characteristic of allowing a strategic alliance between man and technique – explained Trignani -. Indeed, it is man who guides the technique to express its healing potential. Man’s energy is potentially infinite and even in a moment of difficulty like the disease, he will never be able to let himself be overwhelmed and dominated by technology”

Brain surgery

The 30-year-old woman underwent surgery to remove a glioma in her frontal area while awake, in the area that controls speech and movement on the right side of her body. For all the pre-operative phase the child was with his mother, then he waited with his father for the end of the operation in the ward, where his mother nursed him as soon as she returned from surgery, which is perfectly successful. The technique used made it possible to optimize the preservation of functional brain areas and to avoid the load of anesthetic drugs resulting from a possible general anesthesia, which would have prevented the woman from continuing to breastfeed the newborn.

The hospital staff also thought of making the room in which the patient and her little son stayed as welcoming as possible: it was a cradle was set up next to the mother’s bed, with a plush panda, to make the woman and the child feel at home. “The small – concluded Trignani – represents for his mom a real personal trainer which prepares you for the procedure and which will allow you to quickly overcome the consequences of the intervention and the tension that normally accompanies it”.