Meet the Baby Who Was 'Born Twice'

Cassian Joubert will grow up with two birthdays and a medical file that's headed to an international conference. The Florida boy's parents say their second son was effectively "born twice" after an unusual, high-risk operation that required partially delivering him at 25 weeks, operating to deal with a medical issue, then returning him to the womb until he was closer to term, per the Guardian. Cassian was diagnosed at 19 weeks with congenital high airway obstruction syndrome, or CHAOS, a rare and often fatal congenital condition that blocks a fetus's airway. "When he was first diagnosed we did what every parent would do—cry and pray," mom Keishera Jourbert tells People. "The scientific literature on CHAOS was bleak."

Cassian initially underwent an in-utero laser procedure, but that failed. His doctor, Emanuel "Mike" Vlastos at Orlando Health's Winnie Palmer Hospital, then proposed a more radical plan: a C-section in which only the baby's head and arms were delivered while he remained attached to the placenta, allowing specialists to surgically create an airway before placing him back in the uterus; ABC7 has a photo that doctors took of Cassian during that procedure. "It was a glimpse of the future," Keishera Joubert says.

Six weeks later, Cassian was fully delivered, weighing just 3 pounds and facing a four-month neonatal intensive-care stay, per the Guardian. Cassian still needs procedures and uses a ventilator, but he's now home, his parents are planning two birthday celebrations, and Vlastos is set to present the case in Japan this fall. Keishera tells People that Cassian is "doing well" and is a "happy" and "inquisitive" baby.