\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA Florida family is preparing for their son Cassian’s first birthday after a groundbreaking surgery at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital allowed him to be born twice and saved his life. Cassian\u2019s parents, Keishera and Greg Jouvert, learned in January 2025 that their 2-year-old son Mattias would soon be a big brother.\u201cWe were very joyful. We were very happy. We found that he was a boy!\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. At 19 weeks into the pregnancy, doctors discovered Cassian had Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome, a rare condition in which a thick membrane blocks the airway.\u201cYour son is very special. This case is barely in any textbooks, and I have personally never seen it in my career,\u201d Keishera Jouvert recalled being told by doctors. CHAOS affects 1 in every 50,000 to 100,000 births and is often fatal.\u201cA lot of the articles would say that it\u2019s devastatingly fatal. A lot of the babies die in the womb or shortly after birth, and I immediately just closed my laptop, and I went straight into the bedroom, into a corner, just started crying,\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. Only three survivorsDetermined to save their child, the Jouverts met with Dr. Emanuel Vlastos at Winnie Palmer Hospital within a week.In his 42-year career, Vlastos had seen a dozen CHAOS cases, with only three survivors.\u201cThose are all cases from the past when we talk about the cases we know. We don\u2019t know about the case present, and perhaps that\u2019s where hope floats us down the stream of life,\u201d Vlastos said. At 22 weeks pregnant, Keishera Jouvert underwent laparoscopic surgery to cut through the membrane blocking Cassian\u2019s airway. However, the membrane proved too thick, leaving the family at a loss. \u201cWe\u2019re not even at square one; we\u2019re a step behind square one,\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. Vlastos then proposed a groundbreaking procedure: delivering the baby partially via cesarean section, with only the head and arms outside the womb while the rest of the body remains connected to the placenta. This would allow an ear, nose and throat specialist to perform a tracheostomy to create an airway. At 25 weeks, the surgery was successfully performed.\u201cDr. Vlastos comes in, and he\u2019s like, ‘Your baby did great during surgery,’\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. She recalled jokingly telling the doctor, \u201cI am a little bit jealous. You got to see my baby before me.\u201d Dr. Vlastos showed her a photo of Cassian during the surgery, allowing her to see her baby\u2019s face and the tracheal stent for the first time. \u201cI got to see what my little baby looked like at 25 weeks. I got to see his little mouth, his eyes and his eyebrows, and then the little tracheal stent that was in it. And it was just so beautiful and amazingly unique,\u201d she said. Final surgeryCassian\u2019s third and final surgery came at 31 weeks when Keishera Jouvert\u2019s water broke. More than 30 nurses and doctors mobilized to replace Cassian\u2019s tracheostomy tube with one that would serve him outside the womb. A ventilator and feeding tube replaced the placenta\u2019s functions. Cassian is now home, though he faces at least three more surgeries before he turns 2 to address the thick membrane keeping him on a ventilator.\u201cSome days it does feel like we\u2019re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some days, it does feel like, OK, we\u2019ve gotten this far, but what\u2019s next? What\u2019s coming on the horizon? Because, you know, every day is different. You know, Cassian is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you\u2019re going to get,\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. Greg Jouvert added, \u201cWe\u2019re not through it yet, but honestly, aren\u2019t we all, like, in need of a good story?\u201d Vlastos credited the parents\u2019 advocacy for making the groundbreaking surgery possible, saying he leaned on colleagues worldwide to develop the procedure.He plans to present the results at an international medical conference in Japan this October.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A Florida family is preparing for their son Cassian’s first birthday after a groundbreaking surgery at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital allowed him to be born twice and saved his life. <\/p>\n
Cassian\u2019s parents, Keishera and Greg Jouvert, learned in January 2025 that their 2-year-old son Mattias would soon be a big brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very joyful. We were very happy. We found that he was a boy!\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. <\/p>\n
At 19 weeks into the pregnancy, doctors discovered Cassian had Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome, a rare condition in which a thick membrane blocks the airway.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour son is very special. This case is barely in any textbooks, and I have personally never seen it in my career,\u201d Keishera Jouvert recalled being told by doctors. <\/p>\n
CHAOS affects 1 in every 50,000 to 100,000 births and is often fatal.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the articles would say that it\u2019s devastatingly fatal. A lot of the babies die in the womb or shortly after birth, and I immediately just closed my laptop, and I went straight into the bedroom, into a corner, just started crying,\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. <\/p>\n
Only three survivors<\/p>\n
Determined to save their child, the Jouverts met with Dr. Emanuel Vlastos at Winnie Palmer Hospital within a week.<\/p>\n
In his 42-year career, Vlastos had seen a dozen CHAOS cases, with only three survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are all cases from the past when we talk about the cases we know. We don\u2019t know about the case present, and perhaps that\u2019s where hope floats us down the stream of life,\u201d Vlastos said. <\/p>\n
At 22 weeks pregnant, Keishera Jouvert underwent laparoscopic surgery to cut through the membrane blocking Cassian\u2019s airway. However, the membrane proved too thick, leaving the family at a loss. \u201cWe\u2019re not even at square one; we\u2019re a step behind square one,\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. <\/p>\n
Vlastos then proposed a groundbreaking procedure: delivering the baby partially via cesarean section, with only the head and arms outside the womb while the rest of the body remains connected to the placenta. This would allow an ear, nose and throat specialist to perform a tracheostomy to create an airway. <\/p>\n
At 25 weeks, the surgery was successfully performed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Vlastos comes in, and he\u2019s like, ‘Your baby did great during surgery,’\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. <\/p>\n
She recalled jokingly telling the doctor, \u201cI am a little bit jealous. You got to see my baby before me.\u201d Dr. Vlastos showed her a photo of Cassian during the surgery, allowing her to see her baby\u2019s face and the tracheal stent for the first time. \u201cI got to see what my little baby looked like at 25 weeks. I got to see his little mouth, his eyes and his eyebrows, and then the little tracheal stent that was in it. And it was just so beautiful and amazingly unique,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Final surgery<\/p>\n
Cassian\u2019s third and final surgery came at 31 weeks when Keishera Jouvert\u2019s water broke. More than 30 nurses and doctors mobilized to replace Cassian\u2019s tracheostomy tube with one that would serve him outside the womb. A ventilator and feeding tube replaced the placenta\u2019s functions. <\/p>\n
Cassian is now home, though he faces at least three more surgeries before he turns 2 to address the thick membrane keeping him on a ventilator.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome days it does feel like we\u2019re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some days, it does feel like, OK, we\u2019ve gotten this far, but what\u2019s next? What\u2019s coming on the horizon? Because, you know, every day is different. You know, Cassian is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you\u2019re going to get,\u201d Keishera Jouvert said. <\/p>\n
Greg Jouvert added, \u201cWe\u2019re not through it yet, but honestly, aren\u2019t we all, like, in need of a good story?\u201d <\/p>\n
Vlastos credited the parents\u2019 advocacy for making the groundbreaking surgery possible, saying he leaned on colleagues worldwide to develop the procedure.<\/p>\n
He plans to present the results at an international medical conference in Japan this October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida family is preparing for their son Cassian’s first birthday after a groundbreaking surgery at Orlando Health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[110917,1183,110914,166,2006,110919,110915,110913,1210,139,141,140,5661,110920,20795,110916,1456,110918],"class_list":["post-255004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-airway","tag-case","tag-cassian","tag-day","tag-doctor","tag-dr-emanuel-vlastos","tag-florida-baby","tag-keishera","tag-life","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-parent","tag-placenta","tag-surgery","tag-vlastos","tag-week","tag-womb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}