News | Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University

<big>PEDIATRIC SURGERY DIVISION SAVES NEWBORN WITH REMARKABLE OPERATION TO REPAIR MALFORMED COLON</big>
 
Stony Brook Children's Provides a Unique Surgical Service

<div class="caption"><table width="300"><tbody><tr><td>Dr. Richard J. Scriven with Benjamin McElwaine Sheprow. (From Newsday video; click on image to enlarge).
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STONY BROOK, NY, November 25, 2015 — "LI Mom Grateful for Baby with Healthy Appetite on Thanksgiving" is the headline of the <a href="http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/leyla-echegaray-grateful-for-…; target="_"blank"">Newsday article</a> that appeared today, on the eve of Thanksgiving. It begins:

Baby Benjamin isn't ready for turkey on his first Thanksgiving, but he's got a hearty appetite.

That's reason enough for Leyla Echegaray to give thanks. Seven weeks ago, the newborn couldn't eat. His life was in danger because of a rare gastrointestinal blockage that required emergency surgery.

Thursday, when Echegaray and her son join relatives at grandma's Port Jefferson home for the traditional holiday feast, she'll also be thankful for her second family — the doctors, specialists and midwives at Stony Brook University Hospital.

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"I can't stress how much I love and appreciate everything that the doctors here at Stony Brook have done for me," says Benjamin's mother.
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Our "Top Doc" pediatric surgeon <a href="/surgery/people/faculty/dr-richard-j-scriven">Richard J. Scriven, MD</a>, of our <a href="/surgery/divisions/pediatric-surgery">Pediatric Surgery Division</a>, performed the operation to correct the infant's colonic atresia.

Benjamin's life-threatening atresia is a rare condition in which a part of the colon has not formed correctly, as only 1 in 80,000 to 100,000 babies are born with it.

The surgery was done emergently just 12 hours after the child was born on October 7.

Dr. Scriven explains that the section of the boy's colon where the blockage of blood supply was located had swelled 10 to 20 times the normal size, which is about the size of a pencil in an infant. During the three-hour surgery, he removed the swollen section and reconnected the colon.

A major challenge of the repair was the size difference in the parts of the colon to be reconnected. Dr. Scriven says it was like the difference between an elephant and a mouse, in that one part of the colon was so much bigger than the other part.

These two parts of bowel had to be sewn together, end to end, to repair the gastrointestinal tract.

The baby was sent home from the hospital on October 21. Feeding well, he now weighs more than 14 pounds. He has gained around 4 pounds since he was born.

"I can't stress how much I love and appreciate everything that the doctors here at Stony Brook have done for me," says Benjamin's mother. "It's been an incredible journey."

<div class="pointer">Watch the Newsday video (1:32 min) of Dr. Scriven talking about the operation, together with Benjamin's mother Leyla who describes her experience:</div>