My pregnancy took a scary turn when the scan revealed that it wasn’t just my baby growing inside me
A ‘miracle baby’ has been born with a tumor so big he weighed almost as much as she did.
Kristin and Jacob Tyler of Louisiana were about 20 weeks pregnant with their second child in February 2024 when doctors noticed abnormal growth during a routine ultrasound.
Doctors diagnosed the couple’s unborn daughter with a sacrococcygeal teratoma, a one-in-27,000 tumor that forms in the baby’s tailbone during pregnancy.
Mrs Tyler, 23, said: ‘I was very scared. After so many doctor appointments and seeing it on the ultrasound, it was scary.”
Baby Adalida was born on May 21 at 34 weeks, with a tumor the size of a watermelon that weighed four pounds, almost two-thirds of the newborn’s body weight.
Adalida Tyler (pictured here) was born in May with a four-pound tumor growing from her tailbone
The above image shows Adalida’s ultrasound scan, where the tumor – called sacrococcygeal teratoma – can be seen
Dr. Ahmed Nassr, a maternal fetal medicine specialist and fetal surgeon at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, told People that sacrococcygeal teratoma is “very rare” and occurs for unknown reasons.
He said: ‘It’s just bad luck.’
Although the majority of these tumors are not cancer, they can pose significant dangers to a newborn.
This is because they develop large blood vessels as they grow. Dr. Nassr said, “They’re essentially stealing the baby’s blood supply.”
This means that ‘the baby’s heart has to work very hard’, and excessive strain can eventually lead to heart failure.
In March, Ms. Tyler and her one-year-old son William moved to Texas to keep a closer eye on Adalida.
In addition to this challenging step, Ms. Tyler felt increasingly isolated because none of her friends and family had ever heard of sacrococcygeal teratoma.
She told People: ‘There was no one I could contact to talk about it. It felt like we were in the dark.”
Adalida was born via cesarean section due to the large size of the tumor. Two days after birth, the tumor was successfully removed and the newborn was able to go home about a month later
Adalida’s mother, Kristin Tyler, told People that the child has met all her developmental milestones
Mrs. Tyler delivered Adalida via caesarean section due to the size of the tumor.
Dr. Nassr said: ‘We had to be very careful during the delivery. We had to avoid any trauma or rupture of the tumor. ‘Because sometimes with such a large tumor, the tumor can rupture and bleed, and the baby can become very ill after delivery.’
Adalida was born at 34 weeks, with a four-pound, 16-centimeter tumor. Combined, the baby and tumor weighed just over 10 pounds.
“It was a big tumor, that’s why we were so concerned,” Dr. Nassr said.
Ms. Tyler noted that she only got to see Adalida for “a split second” before the newborn was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
She said, “I had just had her, and I was crying and upset.”
Two days later, surgeons were able to completely remove the tumor. Just over a month later, Adalida was finally able to go home on June 29, her due date.
Ms Tyler said Adalida suffered no complications from her ordeal and has achieved all her developmental milestones.
“She’s a good, happy baby,” Mrs. Tyler said. ‘She’s healthy. She’s totally fine. She is healed.
‘We call her our miracle baby. We call her angel baby. There were so many people who loved her. I’m so grateful.’