When Kelly Easton learned she was pregnant with identical twins, she had no idea she would soon face the same rare complication her mother did decades earlier—Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS).
Diagnosed at her 20-week ultrasound, Kelly was referred to the Fetal Care Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the only center in Missouri offering minimally invasive fetal laser surgery for TTTS. This life-saving in utero procedure uses a tiny camera and laser to correct the blood vessel imbalance between the twins, significantly improving their chances of survival.
“As best we can, we are trying to divide a single placenta into two separate ones,” says Dr. Kathy Bligard, maternal-fetal medicine specialist and associate director of the Fetal Care Center.
The Fetal Care Center, a partnership between Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and WashU Medicine, treats TTTS patients from across the region and is training the next generation of specialists to offer this advanced care.