Baby's delivery hardly routine

• Video Below: Lucky baby.

A typical baby delivery requires a medical team of three: a doctor and two nurses.

When Haylee Hanson arrived last month at the Nebraska Medical Center, more than 40 doctors, nurses and other medical staff were on hand.

The big crew was needed because of a rare procedure performed on Haylee, whose airway was blocked by a tumor.

Doctors performed a cesarean section, then put a breathing tube down the baby’s throat while she was still attached to the umbilical cord.

The hospital provided details of the birth during a news conference Tuesday.

Only 100 cases involving the procedure are documented nationally, according to the Medical Center.

The procedure was a first for the Medical Center, but not for Omaha. In the past decade, specialists from Children’s performed the procedure six times on babies delivered at the adjoining Methodist Hospital, according to a Children’s spokeswoman.

Haylee was born to Megan and Dan Hanson of Denison, Iowa.

A couple days after a routine 4-month ultrasound, Megan’s doctor called: Something doesn’t look right. She said the doctor didn’t elaborate and ordered additional ultrasounds.

The news alarmed Hanson, now 35, and her husband Dan, 39.

“Every bad thought ran through my mind,” she said.

Was Haylee missing an arm or a leg? Was there some other serious birth defect?

An ultrasound a few weeks later revealed the problem: A benign tumor inside Haylee’s mouth was blocking her airway.

The tumor wasn’t a problem at that point because the umbilical cord delivered oxygen.

But once that cord was cut at delivery, Haylee wouldn’t be able to breathe, said Dr. Ann Anderson-Berry, a Medical Center neonatologist.

During the July 29 procedure, doctors started by performing the cesarean section.

Once Haylee’s head emerged, Dr. Rodney Lusk determined with a special scope that the tumor was attached to the top of her mouth and down the back of her throat.

Lusk, a specialist at Boys Town National Research Hospital, inserted the breathing tube down the baby’s throat, around the tumor and into the windpipe.

Once doctors were confident that the tube was secure and her heart rate stable, the medical team delivered Haylee completely and cut her umbilical cord.

If the tube hadn’t worked, part of the medical team would have made a hole in Haylee’s windpipe to allow her to breathe, said Dr. Shahab Abdessalam, a pediatric surgeon at the Medical Center and Children’s Hospital.

He coordinated the delivery.

If the hole in the windpipe hadn’t worked, Haylee would have been connected to a bypass machine.

The machine would have breathed for her by recirculating her blood until the tumor was removed.

On Aug. 5, doctors removed the tumor. A few days later doctors removed the breathing tube and she began breathing on her own.

Haylee is expected to recover and not suffer any long-term problems from the tumor. She might be released from the hospital this week.

Her parents can’t wait to bring her home to her brother, 4-year-old Tyler.

“It’s beyond joy,’’ her mom said.

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