Today we met with one of the pediatricians at the Royal Hospital to discuss the balloon procedure. It is such a hard decision to make as there are risks associated with the procedure with premature reputure of membranes being the biggest risk. The longer the baby is in the womb the better the chances of survival as it will have so little lung function that prematurity will complicate drastically. It is imperative that I get to at least 32 weeks or the baby will have no chance of survival, balloon or no balloon.
Our consultant made it quite clear that she did not feel the balloon would work, she didnt appear to have much knowledge of the procedure but she did not see that it could improve lung function and she also felt that any intervention was highly likely to put me into premature labour following the procedure.
The pediatrician also expressed this view. He did not think that blocking the trachea of the baby could improve survival rates by this high percentage.
It was a very tough decision to make when many medical professionals have such differing opinions. Both our consultant and the Pediatrician did agree with the prognosis and felt that at best the baby had a 1-2% chance of survival, as the pediatrician put it: for the baby to survive we would need the same luck as rolling 6 on a dice 6 times in a row.
However, we were aware of at least a few babies with the same prognosis that survived after having FETO and felt we had to give the baby the best chance we possibly could, we could not rely on that luck.
We are heading back to London on Tuesday to get the balloon in.
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