“A Glimpse”: Florida Baby Born Twice After Surgery Saved His Life Is Set To Celebrate 2 Birthdays
- Florida baby Cassian Joubert was diagnosed with a rare and life-threatening airway condition at 19 weeks
- Doctors partially delivered Cassian at 25 weeks to perform emergency surgery before placing him back in the womb
- His parents Keishera and Greg Joubert plan to celebrate two birthdays to mark his extraordinary journey
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Source: Getty Images
A Florida baby has captured hearts around the world after surviving a condition so rare that his doctor had only seen it a dozen times in a 42-year career. And this year, he celebrates both those days.
Cassian Joubert was still in the womb when his parents, Keishera and Greg Joubert, received devastating news. At 19 weeks into her pregnancy, Keishera was told her son had Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome (CHAOS), a condition where a thick membrane blocks a foetus's airway, trapping fluid in the lungs. It affects roughly one in every 50,000 births and is frequently fatal.
Keishera said she kept coming across the phrase "devastatingly fatal" while researching the condition. Her physician, Dr Emanuel "Mike" Vlastos, told local outlet WESH 2 News that of the dozen CHAOS cases he had encountered, only three babies survived.
A surgery unlike any other
According to a report by The Guardian, an initial in-utero procedure using a laser scope failed to clear the blockage. Dr Vlastos then proposed something far more extraordinary. At 25 weeks, Cassian was partially delivered through a caesarean section at Orlando Health's Winnie Palmer Hospital in June 2025. Only his head and arms emerged from the womb while his lower body remained attached to the placenta. An ear, nose and throat specialist then surgically created an airway for him before the team placed Cassian back inside his mother's uterus.
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Keishera stayed in hospital for the remainder of her pregnancy. She told Good Morning America that during the procedure, doctors showed her a photograph of Cassian.
"It was a glimpse of a little baby boy that I would eventually take home from the hospital," she said.
Cassian was born in August 2025 at 31 weeks. He weighed just 3lb (1.4kg) and spent four months and nine days in the neonatal intensive care unit. He came home just in time for Christmas.
The family now plans to mark two separate birthdays each year, one for the surgery anniversary and one for his birth.
View the Instagram post below:
More Briefly News stories on births
- An Australian mum amazed the world after giving birth to identical quadruplets from a rare pregnancy, with the babies’ arrival described as an extraordinary one-in-15-million event.
- A viral video showing shocking conditions at a Nigerian hospital where women give birth has sparked concern, with many people reacting to the state of the maternity ward.
- A South African woman went viral after revealing the costs involved in giving birth, breaking down her maternity expenses in a TikTok video that surprised many viewers.
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Source: Briefly News
