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CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
A family portrait shows mother Janaya Moscony and father John Lukan holding Makoa John Lukan-Mosconyfor the first time, on Feb. 11, nine days after Makoa was born. Today, he is healthy and weighs nearly 11 pounds.
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Delivery unit at Children's Hospital saves newborns' lives

Each year about 200 newborns - the sickest in the Philadelphia region - are rushed to CHOP's NICU from other hospitals.

Yet the quicker a distressed newborn like Makoa is treated, the better his chances.

In the NICU, four floors below the room where Janaya lay in recovery, a team of doctors, nurses, and therapists went to work on the baby.

Specialists quickly began the long, inch-by-inch process of putting the intestines back into Makoa's little body.

They inserted a second IV, this one in his right arm.

Then Adzick, assisted by two other surgeons, carefully stuffed the intestines into a soft plastic condom-like tube called a silo. The silo was hung directly above the baby's belly.

At 12:17, Adzick was finished. It had been 88 minutes since Makoa's birth.

Above his bed, a monitor tracked the baby's heart rate, his breathing, and the amount of oxygen in his blood. The warmer was set to come on automatically if Makoa's temperature dipped.

Two hours later, Janaya, still groggy from her labor and dressed in a loose hospital gown, came down to see her son.

She still couldn't pick him up, but she could soothe him - and herself - with a stroke of his forehead, a kiss on the cheek, a soft whisper in his ear.

Hours later, after grabbing some sleep, some food, and a shower, she returned to the NICU.

It was 3 a.m., and the 70-bed unit was quiet.

She pulled a chair up next to Makoa's warmer and looked down at her son.

She didn't want to wake him, but couldn't stop herself from putting a hand on his head. She watched intently, the rise and fall of his chest, the reflexive spasms in his legs, the small movements of his red lips.

Janaya couldn't take her eyes off him.

 

The fit

She was still at her baby's side the next morning when Adzick came through to check on Makoa. John was with her, having gone home the night before to get a couple of hours rest and pack for a prolonged hospital stay.

He looks good, Adzick reassured the anxious parents.

Another surgeon gently squeezed the top of the silo containing Makoa's intestines. That pressure, aided by gravity, pushed a bit more of the intestines back to where they belonged.

Using a white, blue-striped twist tie, the doctor cinched closed the silo just above the topmost portion of intestine.

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