A ‘miracle’ baby has been born with a tumor so large it weighed almost as much as she did.
Kristin and Jacob Tyler of Louisiana were about 20 weeks pregnant in February 2024 with their second child when doctors noticed an abnormal growth on a routine ultrasound.
Doctors diagnosed the couple’s unborn baby with a sacrococcygeal teratoma, one of 27,000 tumors that forms during pregnancy in the baby’s tailbone.
Mrs Tyler, 23, said: “I was very scared. After so many doctor appointments and seeing it on the ultrasound, it was terrifying.”
Baby Adalida was born on May 21 at 34 weeks, with a watermelon-sized tumor that weighed four pounds, nearly two-thirds of the newborn’s body weight.
Adalida Tyler (pictured) was born in May with a four-pound tumor growing on her tailbone.
The image above shows Adalida’s ultrasound, where you can see the tumor, called sacrococcygeal teratoma.
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.”
While most of these tumors are not cancerous, they can pose significant dangers to the newborn.
This is because as they grow, they develop large blood vessels. Dr. Nassr said, “They basically steal the baby’s blood supply.”
This means that “the baby’s heart needs to work very hard” and that too much stress can eventually lead to heart failure.
In March, Mrs. Tyler and her one-year-old son, William, moved to Texas to better monitor Adalida.
In addition to the challenging move, Mrs. Tyler felt increasingly isolated, as none of her friends and family had heard of sacrococcygeal teratoma.
She told People: ‘There was no one to turn to to talk about it. It seemed like we were in the dark.”
Adalida was born by cesarean section due to the large size of the tumor. The tumor was successfully removed two days after birth and the newborn was able to return home about a month later.
Adalida’s mother, Kristin Tyler, told People that the baby has met all of her developmental milestones.
Ms. Tyler gave birth to Adalida by cesarean section due to the size of the tumor.
Dr Nassr said: ‘We needed to be very careful during delivery. Any trauma or rupture of the tumor had to be avoided. “Because sometimes such a large tumor can rupture and start bleeding, and the baby can become seriously ill after delivery.”
Adalida was born at 34 weeks and her tumor measured four pounds and 16 centimeters. Combined, the baby and tumor weighed just over 10 pounds.
“It was a large tumor, that’s why we were so worried,” Dr. Nassr said.
Ms. Tyler said she was only able to see Adalida “for a split second” before the newborn was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
She said: “I had just had it and I was crying and I was upset.”
Two days later, surgeons were able to completely remove the tumor. Adalida was finally able to return home a little over a month later, on June 29, her due date.
Ms Tyler said Adalida has had no complications from her ordeal and has met all her developmental milestones.
“She’s a good, happy baby,” Mrs. Tyler said. ‘She is healthy. She is very well. She is cured.
‘We call her our miracle baby. We call her baby angel. There were so many people who loved her. I’m very grateful.’