Rebecca's Story

Having a sick child is every parent’s worst nightmare, so when Adriane Hanelt’s 2-week old daughter Rebecca would not stop vomiting, the former nurse was panicked.

“She started vomiting at 6 p.m., so we called her pediatrician who told us to not feed her for a few hours and wait. By midnight, we had to take her to the Emergency Department,” Adrianne said.

The doctors tried to give the infant fluids, fearing that she was at risk of dehydrating and giving her Pedialyte in a bottle, but Rebecca had only been breastfed up until this point and was unfamiliar with the bottle and would not drink. Around 10 a.m., they took an x-ray and found an obstruction. Unable to perform the surgery themselves, they referred Rebecca to Children’s National Hospital.

At Children’s, Rebecca was diagnosed with intestinal malrotation and volvulus, her intestine was twisted causing the obstruction detected in her x-rays. The young infant, only 15-days old, would need surgery to correct the problem.

Luckily, Rebecca’s surgery could be done through a minimally invasive procedure by one of the leading pediatric surgeons in the nation, Timothy Kane, M.D. Minimally invasive surgery, also known as laparoscopic surgery, involves only three small incisions, which create smaller scars and a faster healing time so patients can return home sooner.