Lviv otolaryngologists of the St. Nicholas Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv operated on the boy with the fusion of the nostrils. The baby was born with a rare pathology and could not breathe or eat.
Maxim was born three months ago. The abnormality of intrauterine development was not known before birth. The pregnancy went well. So the fact that the baby could not breathe on its own came as a shock. He was immediately transferred to the intensive care unit, where he was connected to machines, and a complete bony choanal atresia was discovered – a life-threatening pathology of the respiratory tract.
“Choanal atresia is a fusion of the internal nasal openings. Such a congenital anomaly occurs in one in seven thousand newborns. With a partial fusion, the child suffers from a lack of oxygen and has a high risk of developing pneumonia, and even death. In the case of Maksym, it is a question of complete overlap of the nostrils. The only honor to save the baby’s life was to correct the defect surgically,” explains the First Medical Association of Lviv.
After ten days in the intensive care unit, Maxim was operated on. During the surgical intervention, the specialists of the otolaryngology department made holes in the baby’s nose and fixed them with special tubes so that the respiratory tract does not become overgrown again. Maxim spent a month in the hospital under the supervision of neonatologists. All this time, the boy was fed with the help of a probe.
Today, three-month-old Maksymko is breathing and eating on his own, gaining weight well. Every week, the baby is brought to the hospital for nasal dilation and preventive cleaning. This is a mandatory procedure – so that the internal nostrils do not close again. It will be held until the boy is six months old.