Memorial Hospital sees rare childbirth procedure for first time in decades; staff reunites with family involved

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - If you’ve come to Memorial Health Hospital before, you were probably hoping that whatever doctor you were working with had experience in the procedure you needed right? Well what if the hospital hadn’t seen the procedure in a decade?

These were the unlikely circumstances that Reagan Barnard found herself in earlier this year.

On the first of the month, she gave birth to baby Charlotte, but this was through what’s called an EXIT procedure, something nobody’s seen here in a long time.

The procedure came and went perfectly fine, the baby is okay, and the family got to come back to Memorial Hospital and meet the nurses and doctors who brought baby Charlotte, to life.

“We actually just delivered the top half of Charlotte and the bottom half was still inside the uterus,” said Bradley Buckler, physician in chief. " That allowed us to leave her attached to the placenta and umbilical cord so that she could continue to get the blood and oxygen that her brain and body need.”

For such a rare childbirth process, everyone involved had an important role. Communication was a major key, so preparation was a huge emphasis.

“We had multiple long meetings to ensure that everybody was in the right place, that we had the right equipment,” said Buckler. “It was a total team effort in terms of getting this procedure done.”

There were 31 people who were in the room that worked on the childbirth, a new record for memorial hospital according to Dr. Buckler.

“I feel like we were honestly overly prepared so I really wasn’t nervous that day,” said Raegan Barnard. “I feel like they cared for us like family.”

With members on the team who had never been a part of an EXIT procedure, having test runs was the key ingredient to a successful operation.

“It’s important for all of us to be in the same room and do a few runs of this so on the day that we’re actually during the procedure, that it runs seamlessly and that’s exactly what happened,” said Dr. Buckler.

Baby Charlotte was eating from the mouth before she left the hospital, and has been healthy ever since according to the Barnards.

“I was telling them I think the NICU made her independent she likes to be sat in her bassinet or just hanging out by herself she’ll get wiggly like this and want to be put down so she’s little miss independent,” said Barnard. “But she’s been a calm baby so far so she’s content.”

And so with that, baby Charlotte’s time isn’t done yet at a hospital, she’ll have to get the mass on her tongue removed at some point fully, but for the time being she’s healthy, happy, and active.