Theo’s parents initially had no idea anything was wrong with their unborn child.
“Going towards a 20-week scan, we were purely just excited to have an image of our baby,” said Josh. “We didn’t know he was going to be a ‘he’ at the time.”
Josh said discovering Theo had gastroschisis had been a shock and “incredibly scary”.
At 24 weeks gestation, specialist doctors at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) had been preparing expectant parents Maisie and Josh for what the first six months of Theo’s life were going to look like.
However, after discovering he had the more serious condition of complex gastroschisis, doctors referred him to Texas Children’s Hospital, in Houston.
There, a team of foetal and paediatric surgeons, led by Dr Michael Belfort, had been leading a first-of-its-kind clinical trial to repair complex gastroschisis before birth.
Belfort, the clinical lead on the trial, had previously pioneered a similar surgical procedure in the womb on babies with spina bifida.