Weborg, Brandon

We found out that Brandon had a right-sided CDH during my ultrasound at 29 weeks. And for the most part the rest of my pregnancy was normal.

Brandon was delivered by C-section at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on October 15. He was immediately put on the ventilator, but other than that he was stable. We were lucky his other birth defect was hypospadius (repaired at 6 months old).

When Brandon was 5 days old he had his first surgery in which they had to move down his stomach, liver, and intestines. The hernia was closed with a goretex patch. He had 2 more surgeries to completely close his incision- one at nine days and the other at 11 days.

Brandon improved quite quickly and was taken off the ventilator at four and a half weeks and at five and a half weeks he came home. We have been very lucky that Brandon did and continues to do so well. He has had no complications from the CDH, and with the exceptions of normal baby illnesses he has been healthy. In fact, unless you were to see his "battle scars", you probably would never be able to tell that he had such a rough start.

Written by Brandon's mom,
1997