After a determined mother seeking to help her son breathe better at night reached out to an empathetic Texas A&M University professor, a team of students was assembled to work toward a creative solution. The result of these efforts is \u201cThe JawDropper\u201d \u2014 a life-changing medical advancement that is truly a force for good.<\/p>\n
Five-year-old David Hardy was born without the lower right portion of his jaw. This condition made breathing difficult for him as a newborn, especially when he was sleeping. In certain positions, the left side of his jaw would move sideways and push his tongue over his airway, which caused dangerous drops in his oxygen levels. While the issue \u2014 known as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) \u2014 subsided for a few years, it returned when David was 3 years old.<\/p>\n
His breathing issues stemmed from two of the most common facial differences: a cleft lip and palate, which affects up to 1 in 700 births, and hemifacial microsomia (HFM), which affects up to 1 in 3,000 births. HFM often causes more medical complications and can affect the ears, eyes or, in David\u2019s more severe case, jaw.<\/p>\n
After nights spent holding their son\u2019s jaw in place by hand so he could breathe, David\u2019s parents were eventually able to put him on a CPAP machine. Later, a surgeon conducted a rib-graft surgery to provide additional support for his lower right jaw. These actions helped David, but there was still significant room for improvement.<\/p>\n
Texas A&M answers the call<\/p>\n
Thinking back to the nights she spent holding her son\u2019s jaw in place, Carolyn Hardy wanted to do more to help him breathe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would often think, \u2018I wish we could just make a facial brace that would shift his jaw to where it needs to be and give him a safe airway,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t know how to build this device.\u201d<\/p>\n
Convinced that her idea was worth pursuing, Hardy eventually reached out to 14 different university biomedical engineering departments to see if they could build it. While most gave her a generic response, Dr. Charles Patrick<\/a>, director of undergraduate programs for the Texas A&M Department of Biomedical Engineering, answered her with an enthusiastic \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As someone who had struggled with OSA in the past, Patrick immediately empathized with David\u2019s challenges. He also spent over a decade in the MD Anderson Cancer Center\u2019s Reconstructive Surgery Department, where he became familiar with facial reconstruction challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cI was thrilled with Dr. Patrick\u2019s incredibly warm and enthusiastic response,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n Patrick connected her with Zachary Bujnoch<\/a>, associate professor of practice and overseer of biomedical engineering capstone projects, and Dr. Balakrishna Haridas<\/a>, professor of practice and deputy executive director of the Southwest-Midwest National Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium (SWPDC).<\/p>\n