{"id":260361,"date":"2026-05-06T09:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/260361\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:28:09","slug":"florida-baby-born-twice-after-elaborate-surgery-involving-partial-delivery-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/260361\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida baby \u2018born twice\u2019 after elaborate surgery involving partial delivery | Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida<\/a> infant is said to have been born twice after undergoing what was an innovative, likely life-saving surgery that involved a partial delivery weeks before his mother then gave birth to him.<\/p>\n

Cassian Joubert\u2019s remarkable story was recently first told publicly by his mother and father \u2013 Keishera and Greg Joubert \u2013 in a 1 May video<\/a> published on social media by the Orlando Health Women\u2019s Institute, which employs the surgeon that led the baby boy\u2019s prenatal operation.<\/p>\n

Keishera and Greg Joubert then recounted their and Cassian\u2019s experience to various US news outlets, including Good Morning America (GMA<\/a>), where the mother revealed her son would mark his first year of life with two birthdays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re planning just a small party for his birthday, [the] anniversary of his surgery that saved his life \u2013 and then, of course, for his \u2018birth\u2019 birthday, we\u2019re going to have another \u2026 bash for him there to celebrate a whole year,\u201d Keishera told GMA.<\/p>\n

Keishera and Greg Joubert learned that she was pregnant with Cassian in January 2025. As Keishera told<\/a> the Florida news outlet Wesh 2 News, the couple were \u201cvery joyful\u201d about the fact that their two-year-old son, Mattias, would be getting a baby brother.<\/p>\n

But 19 weeks into her pregnancy, the Jouberts received grim news. Doctors discovered Cassian had congenital high airway obstruction syndrome, or Chaos, a condition which involves a thick membrane impeding a fetus\u2019s airway.<\/p>\n

Chaos affects just about one in every 50,000 births, according to one estimate<\/a>, and it is often deadly because it causes fluid to become trapped in a fetus\u2019s lungs. Keishera\u2019s physician, Dr Emanuel \u201cMike\u201d Vlastos, told Wesh he had only seen a dozen Chaos cases in his 42-year career \u2013 with only three of those babies surviving.<\/p>\n

And, while familiarizing herself with the defect, Keishera kept encountering the phrase \u201cdevastatingly fatal\u201d, she said in the Orlando Health video.<\/p>\n

Keishera and Greg Joubert with their son, Cassian. Photograph: Orlando Health<\/p>\n

Vlastos soon scheduled an in-utero surgery aimed at trying to clear the unborn baby\u2019s blockage with a laser scope, but the procedure failed.<\/p>\n

The Jouberts and Vlastos then regrouped, and the doctor suggested an extraordinary measure. He would partially deliver Cassian through a caesarean section, with only his head and arms outside his mother\u2019s womb while the rest of him remained attached to her placenta. An ear, nose and throat specialist at that juncture would surgically create an airway for Cassian.<\/p>\n

The surgical team would then place Keishera\u2019s baby back in her uterus. And after her uterus was closed up, Keishera would remain in the hospital until carrying Cassian to term.<\/p>\n

Keishera and Cassian underwent that elaborate, high-stakes procedure at Orlando Health\u2019s Winnie Palmer hospital in June 2025, when she was 25 weeks pregnant. Amid the process, they took a picture of Cassian and showed it to Keishera, who called the image a \u201clittle \u2026 glimpse of the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a glimpse of a little baby boy that I would eventually take home from the hospital,\u201d Keishera said to GMA.<\/p>\n

Keishera then went into labor in August, six weeks after that successful surgery, which Orlando Health described as \u201crare and novel\u201d. Orlando Health said Cassian had to be delivered through a specialized surgical procedure allowing him to \u201creceive life-saving support before even taking his first breath\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cassian subsequently began a lengthy stay in the hospital\u2019s neonatal intensive care unit, or Nicu. In the Orlando Health video, Greg made it a point to note how his son confronted this \u201cbeginning of a long journey of his survival\u201d while weighing only 3lbs (1.4kg).<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they had everything under control,\u201d Greg said of those caring for his family.<\/p>\n

After four months and nine days in the Nicu, Cassian finally got to go home with his family \u2013 just in time for Christmas.<\/p>\n

He does still have some procedures to grapple with, including to clear the thick membrane forcing him to still need a ventilator to breathe. Nonetheless, his homecoming was a milestone relished by the parents and doctor who gave it their all to make the occasion a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHim coming home \u2026 is the magnum opus of this whole situation,\u201d Keishera said to Orlando Health. \u201c\u2018Thank you\u2019 doesn\u2019t even come close to showing our appreciation to the dozens of people involved in our case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vlastos, meanwhile, reportedly plans to present Cassian\u2019s case at an international medical conference in Japan in October. He could be seen on the video holding Cassian and telling him: \u201cYou are so beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, how could you not be proud?\u201d Vlastos added. \u201cThe biggest moment in time was watching the Jouberts take Cassian out of the hospital and go home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a better day?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida infant is said to have been born twice after undergoing what was an innovative, likely life-saving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-260361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260361","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=260361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}