Fetal Surgery

Fetal surgery is any of a broad range of surgical techniques that are used to treat birth defects in fetuses who are still in the pregnant uterus.

• Open fetal surgery involves completely opening the uterus to operate on the fetus.
• Minimally invasive fetoscopic surgery (fetendo) uses small incisions and is guided by fetoscopy and sonography.
• Some fetal surgery can sometimes be done without either an incision in the uterus or an endoscopic view inside the uterus: it is done entirely with a real-time cross-sectional view provided by the sonogram.