Samuel Armas
Encyclopedia
Samuel Alexander Armas is the child shown in a famous photograph by Michael Clancy of his surgeon holding his hand from out of a hole in his mother's uterus during open fetal surgery
Fetal surgery
Fetal surgery is any of a broad range of surgical techniques that are used to treat birth defects in fetuses who are still in the pregnant uterus.* Open fetal surgery involves completely opening the uterus to operate on the fetus....

 for spina bifida
Spina bifida
Spina bifida is a developmental congenital disorder caused by the incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube. Some vertebrae overlying the spinal cord are not fully formed and remain unfused and open. If the opening is large enough, this allows a portion of the spinal cord to protrude through...

.

Story behind the photo

The photograph was taken during a pioneering surgical procedure performed on August 19, 1999, to fix the spina bifida lesion of a 21-week-old fetus in the womb. The operation was performed by a surgical team at Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

 in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. The team, Dr. Joseph Bruner and Dr. Noel Tulipan, had been developing a technique for correcting certain fetal problems in mid-pregnancy. Their procedure involved temporarily opening the uterus
Uterus
The uterus or womb is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals including humans. One end, the cervix, opens into the vagina, while the other is connected to one or both fallopian tubes, depending on the species...

, draining the amniotic fluid
Amniotic fluid
Amniotic fluid or liquor amnii is the nourishing and protecting liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a pregnant woman.- Development of amniotic fluid :...

, partially extracting and performing surgery on the tiny fetus
Fetus
A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...

, and then restoring the fetus to the uterus back inside the mother.

Samuel Armas

Alex and Julie Armas first discovered that their baby had spina bifida during an ultrasound at 14 weeks after conception mark. The Armases came across the Vanderbilt procedure while researching their options online.

This was the surgical team's 54th operation on a fetus still in the uterus. During the operation, Dr. Joseph Bruner opened the womb and Dr. Tulipan successfully alleviated the effects of the opening in Samuel's spine caused by the spina bifida.

Around the world

Pictures from the surgery were printed in a number of newspapers in the U.S. and around the world, including USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

. As a result of the operation, Armas was healthy when he was delivered on December 2, 1999.

On September 25, 2003, the boy's parents, Alex and Julie, testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space about the photo and their experience with in-utero surgery.

Matt Drudge

In 1999 Matt Drudge
Matt Drudge
Matthew Nathan Drudge is the American creator and editor of the Drudge Report, a news aggregation website. Drudge is self-described as being conservative and populist. Drudge has also authored a book and hosted a radio show and a television show.-Early years:Matthew Drudge was raised in Takoma...

 hosted a Saturday night television show called Drudge
Drudge (TV series)
Drudge is a television series on Fox News Channel hosted by Matt Drudge. Drudge left the show in 1999 after network executives refused to let him show a picture of Samuel Armas....

on the Fox News Channel. In Nov 1999 he attempted to show Samuel's picture on his Fox News program, but was not allowed to by the network. This led to his leaving of the show for what he claimed to be the network's censorship. Fox News directors didn't want to use the picture because they feared Drudge would use it to support a pro-life argument. They viewed this would be misleading because the tabloid photo dealt not with abortion, but with an emergency operation on the baby for spina bifida
Spina bifida
Spina bifida is a developmental congenital disorder caused by the incomplete closing of the embryonic neural tube. Some vertebrae overlying the spinal cord are not fully formed and remain unfused and open. If the opening is large enough, this allows a portion of the spinal cord to protrude through...

.

Controversy

The picture attracted a lot of attention when it was released, as it was used by opponents of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 who asserted that the baby reached through the womb and grabbed the doctor's hand, thus showing signs of life at the 21st week of pregnancy. Indeed the photograph and many of the texts which often accompany it seem to support this view, including the account of the photographer Michael Clancy:
However, the surgeon later stated that Samuel and his mother Julie were under anesthesia and could not move.

Cultural references

The event has been referred to in two medical TV series: the drama House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

, in the episode Fetal Position
Fetal Position (House)
"Fetal Position" is the seventeenth episode of the third season of House and the sixty-third episode overall.-Plot:Pregnant photographer Emma Sloan arrives at a photo shoot for singer Tyson Ritter, but she quickly realizes there is something wrong when she cannot read the writing on a chalk board...

, and the sitcom Scrubs
Scrubs (TV series)
Scrubs is an American medical comedy-drama television series created in 2001 by Bill Lawrence and produced by ABC Studios. The show follows the lives of several employees of the fictional Sacred Heart, a teaching hospital. It features fast-paced screenplay, slapstick, and surreal vignettes...

, in the episode My Road to Nowhere
My Road to Nowhere
"My Road to Nowhere" is the 8th episode of season six and 125th episode overall of the American sitcom Scrubs. It aired on February 8, 2007 NBC.-Synopsis:...

.

External Links

Ten Years Later, Boy's 'Hand of Hope' Continues to Spark Debate
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