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Supporting Women With High-Risk Pregnancies

The Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine and Therapy Center at Burjeel Medical City focuses on improving outcomes for mothers and their babies by diagnosing abnormalities and offering fetal intervention

While many women experience fairly smooth pregnancies, there are those who are diagnosed with maternal or fetal complications during this period. Launched in March 2022, The Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine and Therapy Center has swiftly become a leading maternal fetal medicine center in the UAE. The center is a part of the Fetal Medicine Department at Burjeel Medical City (BMC), located in Mohammed Bin Zayed City, Abu Dhabi, and offers comprehensive pre-natal services for women with high-risk pregnancies.

Fetal medicine is a sub-specialty of obstetrics and ensures the health and well-being of unborn babies. It encompasses the entire spectrum of assessing fetal growth abnormalities and suspected malformations to managing complex surgical defects in-utero or after birth. Fetal medicine and therapy in this area include assessing, diagnosing, and developing a treatment plan for them, as well as providing counseling and support for parents. Established in association with the world-renowned fetal medicine expert Professor Kypros Nicolaides, famously known as the ‘Father of Fetal Medicine’, the center at BMC has a team of fetal medicine consultants and experts who are trained to provide care to women in high-risk pregnancies. As the first-of-its-kind facility in the MENA region, the center is focused on improving outcomes for mothers and their babies throughout pregnancy and beyond.

Diagnosing high-risk pregnancies

The Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine and Therapy Center at BMC offers support to the patients and their families through the pre-conception and pre-natal period by providing diagnosis and fetal intervention and extending care through the labour, delivery, and post-partum periods. In the pre-conception and pre-natal periods, the center evaluates and manages conditions like multiple pregnancies, earlier pre-term birth, earlier still-birth, recurrent pregnancy loss, fibroids, uterine abnormalities, and medical disorders in pregnancy. The center helps pregnant women manage conditions like diabetes, pre-eclampsia, hypertension, thyroid disease, cardiac disorders, thrombophilia, etc.

Experts at the center utilise the latest technological advances in diagnostics and intervention to offer a wide range of services to patients. They use state-of-the-art 3D and 4D ultrasound, MRI, and fetal echocardiography equipment to diagnose fetal defects. The center also offers diagnostic services, including a dating scan between the 11-14th week, screening for chromosomal disorders, anomaly scan, growth and doppler scan, cervical length scan, uterine artery doppler scan, and screening for fetal malformation.

Since its establishment, the Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine and Therapy Center has offered care to patients across the country. It has a highly-skilled team comprising Western Board-Certified maternal-fetal specialists, geneticists, sonographers, and nurses who provide an unmatched level of care in diagnosing and treating conditions before the baby is born. The center relies on cross-discipline collaboration to provide treatments tailored to each family’s unique needs.

The Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine and Therapy Center is headed by Dr. Mandeep Singh, Consultant Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics at BMC and CEO of Burjeel Farha (women and children division of Burjeel). Dr. Singh has worked directly with Prof. Nicolaides for the past 18 years. He is an expert in diagnostic and therapeutic invasive procedures such as in-utero spina bifida repair, fetoscopic laser separation of the placenta, fetoscopic endotracheal occlusion, fetal blood transfusion, shunt insertion and other in-utero procedures.

Treating fetal abnormalities

The Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine and Therapy Center provides cutting-edge care in diagnosing and treating conditions before the baby is born. The center offers a new level of access to patients requiring fetal medicine and therapy in the UAE and the region. Some common fetal malformations that are referred to the center include suspected ventriculomegaly, hyperechogenic bowel, suspected cardiac abnormalities, talipes or ankle joint abnormalities, cleft lip and palate, spine abnormalities, increased nuchal translucency, and lung malformations.

The medical experts at the center are passionate about helping patients and their babies be as healthy as possible throughout the pregnancy. The center uses advanced fetal intervention techniques, including invasive procedures like chorionic villus sampling and amniocentesis. It provides a range of solutions from fetal therapies like fetal blood transfusion, laser separation of the placenta to endotracheal balloon occlusion of the trachea, spina bifida repair in-utero, and fetal echocardiography. Fetal surgery is also used to treat congenital diaphragmatic hernia and other conditions to improve the outcomes of babies.

UNDERSTANDING FETAL MEDICINE

What are the new services you offer?

At the Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine Center, we offer comprehensive fetal care to patients undergoing high-risk pregnancies in the UAE and beyond. The center provides several high-quality services to facilitate the best outcomes for both the mother and the baby during pregnancy, labour, delivery, and the post-partum period. At the center, we screen for common chromosomal abnormalities at 11-14 weeks gestation. We offer a fetal echocardiography service and are equipped to treat a range of heart defects such as ventricular septal defect (VSD), atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD), and Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF).

What are the conditions you frequently treat?

We treat a wide range of maternal and fetal conditions including chromosomal abnormalities like trisomy, heart defects, spinal defects, kidney abnormalities, and genetic defects. Most recently, we successfully treated cases of spina bifida, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, and complex congenital muscular disorder. At the Kypros Nicolaides Fetal Medicine Center, we are equipped to perform FETO (Fetal Endotracheal Occlusion) for the management of moderate to severe congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). We offer laser separation of the placenta for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a disorder that is unique to monochorionic twins (sharing the same placenta) and is caused by an imbalance in blood flow to the babies. Spina bifida, which is a birth defect that affects the spine, has an incidence of 1:500 births. We are equipped to perform in-utero open spina bifida repair at 22-25 weeks gestation using the open and fetoscopic techniques. The endoscopic repair helps seal the defect in the spine and reduces the exposure of the spinal cord to damage by amniotic fluid and hence reducing the need for a VP shunt and improving lower limb power and mobility.

— Dr. Mandeep Singh

To book appointments

Call or WhatsApp 80023

Visit www.burjeelmedicalcity.com