Two-month-old receives life-altering skull surgery

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Two-month-old baby Amelia is held tightly by her father, Benjamin Duran, just a few hours after a surgical procedure at El Paso Children's Hospital that will allow her to have a normal childhood.

Amelia is just one of dozens of babies who received life-altering surgery developed by the late El Paso Children's Hospital Doctor David Jimenez. 

"We're very privileged to be here," said Duran, as he continued to lovingly grip his daughter Amelia.

Along with Dr. Ziyad Makoshi, Doctor David Yates completed a tecnique on Amelia known as "Minimally Invasive Endoscopic Craniosynostosis Surgery".

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention describes Craniosynostosis as:

A birth defect in which the bones in a baby's skull join together too early. This happens before the baby's brain is fully formed. As the baby's brain grows, the skull can become more misshapen.

"If (the condition) continues and worsens, it can affect development, it can affect their ability to do well in school, it can affect their personality," Dr. Yates, the Medical Director for Cleft & Craniofacial Surgery at El Paso Children's Hospital, said. "In the worst cases, it can even cause blindness and death. It's really a unique privilege to be able to treat a kid who's two months old and has a disorder that could affect them very negatively for their whole life and even cause them to end their life prematurely."

"That's the worst part for a father," Duran said when asked about his daughter's diagnosis, "because you don't know what to expect or what to do."

Dr. Yates added that if not for the revolutionary surgery for Amelia, "her brain could not grow at all like this, it could only grow like this.  And, it's like the brain is being forced into a little cube." 

"We've received so much love, it makes you feel that you're not alone in this," Karla Araya, Amelia's mother, said.

The bills for surgery and travel have added up significantly for the family of Amelia.  If you'd like to help, you can visit their GoFundMe.