LWB Community Blog

Twins Harley and James were born conjoined in October of 2015 in southern Guangdong Province. Harley and James’s parents were extremely young, and the cost of providing the specialized medical care their new babies required was completely out of their reach. They faced other obstacles as well, as hospitals in their region refused to take the case because of the family’s poverty. Unwilling to give up, the family traveled to Shanghai where they heard that other conjoined twins had been successfully separated. This is where LWB became a part of their story.

Joined together since birth, James and Harley are now separate little boys following their complex surgery yesterday at Children’s Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai.

The twins’ separation surgery began on Wednesday morning. Imagine their young parents’ feelings of fear, excitement, and hope as they watched their babies be taken away for this long-awaited surgery. Read more.

We are so happy to report that Harley and James, the conjoined twins from Guizhou province, have now arrived in Shanghai for their upcoming (and very complex) separation surgery. It has most definitely been a long journey for them, with a lot of unexpected twists.

Read more.

Last month we learned about a baby from southern China with complex heart issues. Her orphanage had arranged for her to be seen in Beijing, but the surgeons there felt the little girl was inoperable, and so with that very sad diagnosis, they sent her back home.

LWB is fortunate to partner regularly with the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, and so we offered to have Luna seen by the expert heart surgeons there. She arrived to the hospital extremely weak, struggling to feed because even that simple act would exhaust her. Read more.

Eleven years ago, LWB was begun to help save the lives of four beautiful children with heart disease. Since that time, hundreds of children born with heart defects have found healing and then adoption, all thanks to your support.  With the rise of birth defects in China over the last decade, however, the children we are asked to help by orphanages have increasingly complex conditions. Thankfully, we have a partnership with one of the top pediatric cardiac hospitals in China, and so these precious babies have the best chance possible of being healed.

Jane

This week we have three children at Children’s Hospital of FuDan University in Shanghai: Jane, Patrick, and Dominic. Read more.

The first day of surgery has flown by smoothly. What a wonderful day it was. Everyone got up early in order to get to the hospital by 8am. The nurses did not know who would be first so all the children were prepared.

How best to put into words, the excitement, joy and wonder of an international medical exchange. Great things always happen when people travel from near and far to come together to heal children in need. It was an incredible first day. Our team has arrived safely and on time and includes Dr. Ness, Dr. Martin, […]