A mother and child are doing well after Australian-first spinal surgery on the baby while it was still in the womb.
The 24-week-old fetus was diagnosed with spina bifida, a condition that affects one in 2000 pregnancies in Australia, during an ultrasound. Spina bifida is a serious birth defect that prevents a fetus's spine and spinal cord from developing normally. 
It can lead to paralysis and other complications and is normally treated with surgery once a baby is born.
Surgeons, led by director maternal fetal medicine Dr Glenn Gardener, from Queensland's Mater Hospital and Vanderbilt University Hospital in the US carried out the in-utero operation in Brisbane on Saturday.
The operation involved making an incision in the mother's abdomen to access the uterus, then making an incision to reach the lower back of the fetus to correct the abnormality.
Dr Gardener said the surgery was widely available in the US and Europe but this was the first time it has been performed in Australia.
Dr Gardener and members of the team who performed the surgery travelled to the US to watch the procedure being done before raising funds through the hospital's auxiliary to bring the team of surgeons from Vanderbilt to assist.
The patient was the mother of a baby that had reached the 24-week gestation mark, coming inside the very tight window available for surgeons to perform the procedure.
"The surgery needs to be performed during the 22nd and 25th weeks," Dr Gardener said. "Most cases of spina bifida are diagnosed at the 18-20 week scan so that gives the doctors and the patient a few weeks to consider whether it is an option for them or not."
In-utero surgery carries risks for both the mother and the baby but Dr Gardener said an extensive study in the US showed that the positive outcomes of prenatal surgery on spina bifida were incredibly successful.
He hopes the Queensland team will be able to make the surgery more widely available to patients in Australia and possibly expand the availability to New Zealand and South East Asia.
"The future is that if those numbers are enough to keep our skills up we will be able to continue into the future and potentially offer an option for patients in New Zealand and South East Asia where this procedure isn't available."
Dr Gardener said to his knowledge only two Australian patients had travelled overseas to access the surgery, with most parents opting to have the surgery performed after birth.
"It's different to any other surgery that any of us practice in our day to day lives," he said. "This saw five speciality teams coming together sharing in this case."