"But babies can't get hernias"

her·ni·a/ˈhərnēə/

Noun: A condition in which part of an organ is displaced and protrudes through the wall of the cavity containing it.

As we progress with what is sure to be a big part of our future, the misconception commonly associated with CDH continues to highlight how little the average person really knows.

Even Dwayne and I were 'relieved' when the radiologist mentioned CDH because we had seen her heart on the wrong side of her chest and we were afraid that it was a heart problem. When I heard "diaphragmatic" I breathed a sigh of relief - that is until I got home and started researching CDH only to learn we would have had better survival odds if indeed Payton had a heart defect.

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia is NOT the same as the hernia my dad had 2 years ago. While the process is the same (part (or all) of an organ (s) are displaced and protruded through the wall of the cavity that is supposed to contain it, that's where the similarity ends. While, dad had a 'rough' time of it with his surgery and recovery, the herniation of his stomach out of his abdomen wall wasn't life threatening and other than a weird protrusion when he lifted his shirt, there was no other impact that the protruding stomach had on any other part of his body.

With little Payton, her hernia isn't in her abdominal wall, it’s in her diaphragm. The muscle that separates her abdomen from her chest and partly because there's so much 'stuff' in that abdomen (and when she's developing so little in her chest as the lungs develop last) the abdominal contents move up where there is more room. Thus, at the time when the lungs do their most important development (or growth) between 17-24 weeks gestation, there's no room for the soft and delicate tissue of the lungs to grow.

So while the hernia itself isn't often a life threatening issue, the lack of room for lung development resulting from the hernia is.

Its true, hernias in adults are common and are typically caused by worn down stomach muscles that have been over strained (unable to sustain the pressure of the abdominal contents during lifting or other straining efforts, etc) and the abdominal muscles 'break through' – not seen with babies and children. With CDH, it’s a congenital birth defect – when the baby was growing in the uterus, the diaphragm never fully formed in the first place.

So to reply to the statement titling this entry:

Yes, babies do get hernias (though we wish with all our hearts that they didn't).