US News
New Year's gift: Iraqi baby arrives in U.S. for surgery
By DPA
Jan 1, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - It's one of those upbeat stories that comes out of war: Georgia National Guard troops found a sick baby in a Baghdad house they were raiding for weapons.

Worried about the child, the soldiers put into gear a U.S. charity network to help her out. On New Year's eve, three-month-old Baby Noor, as she is known, arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, where she is slated for surgery as early as January 9, news reports said.

The child with smiling dark eyes and long black eyelashes suffers from spina bifida - a birth defect in which the spinal column remains open. Corrective surgery performed immediately after birth generally corrects the defect.

'I saw this child as the first-born child of the young mother and father, and really, all I could think of was my five children back at home and my young daughter,' Lieutenant Jeff Morgan was quoted as saying by Cable News Network.

Other Iraqis have been brought to the U.S. for medical treatment, some of them after being injured in the conflict. But Baby Noor's story caught the U.S. public's imagination.

Dr. Roger Hudgins, the chief of neurosurgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta who will perform the operation, said it was unusual to wait so long for the surgery, as death often occurs if it is not done sooner.

But he said the fact that skin had grown over the deformed spinal column was a good sign.

'That's what kept her alive and prevented germs from going in,' he said in broadcast remarks. 'It's good for her but a technical challenge for us.'

Without surgery, the body below the defective point can be paralyzed, and bladder and bowl problems can develop, he said. The defect can also affect the brain.

'My hope is this child will be intellectually and cognitively normal,' he said. 'There's some catchup that must take place.'

Baby Noor's father and grandmother, whose images are blocked out in photographic coverage of the story, accompanied her on the trip.