How a young girl with spina bifida made medical history...before birth

[KARE 11 News, October 27, 2022] October is Spina Bifida Awareness Month, which means it's a great time to celebrate the extraordinary story of Stella Baty. Stella made Minnesota medical history by becoming the first patient to receive a new kind of procedure to fix a serious birth defect. And it all happened before she was born.

Stella was diagnosed with a potentially severe case of spina bifida, not only impacting the spinal cord, but also causing fluid buildup in the brain that threatened to lead to both physical and intellectual disabilities.

That meant taking the advice of her doctors and traveling from Bismarck to Minneapolis, to seek care from the Midwest Fetal Care Center, which is a unique collaboration between Allina Health and Children's Minnesota.