Toddler ‘like a different child’ after pioneering scarless operation

Leah Hamid, now two, of Manor Park in Sheffield, needed the operation at The Children’s Hospital in Sheffield after she was born with a rare condition which stopped her being able to eat and made her sick up to 20 times a day.

The procedure, which allowed surgeons to enter Leah’s body by a flexible telescope through her mouth and into her stomach and intestine, left no scar or sign of surgery.

Her mother, Amanda Hamid, 32, said: “Leah was like a different child after the operation. She recovered straight away and wasn’t sick.

“When she slept through the night for the first time since she had been born I almost cried.

“My body naturally woke me up throughout the night to check on her and, when I found her fast asleep, it was amazing.”

Leah’s condition, duodenal stenosis, affects one in 6,000 babies. It stops food being digested and causes chronic sickness but, in the past, has been treated by an invasive operation which leaves scarring.

Sean Marven, consultant paediatric surgeon at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, operated on Leah along with colleague Dr Mike Thomson.

He said: “I believe this procedure has never been performed on a child with this condition in the UK before, due to the rare specialist skills and equipment it requires.

“The operation was a complete success; Leah was in much less pain and had a quicker recovery.”