A world-first event took place at Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah, where a woman suffering from severe intestinal inflammation caused by Crohn’s disease underwent a life-saving, minimally invasive robotic bowel resection in her 32nd week of pregnancy.
The complex surgery, which lasted several hours and involved dozens of medical staff, was completed successfully, allowing her to carry the pregnancy to term and give birth to a healthy baby girl.
Tzofiya Leibovich, a 23-year-old medical student, was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in her teens but had been symptom-free until the late stage of her first pregnancy. At 32 weeks, she was admitted to Rabin Medical Center with severe abdominal and back pain.
She was hospitalized in the Maternal-Fetal Unit, where doctors diagnosed acute intestinal inflammation. Despite medical treatment, the condition worsened, and a perforation developed in her intestine, putting her life in immediate danger and requiring urgent surgical intervention.
“The standard surgical approach for intestinal perforation during pregnancy is a full open abdominal surgery, terminating the pregnancy and delivering a premature baby,” explained Dr. Ian White, director of the Colorectal Surgery Unit at Rabin Medical Center.
“A laparoscopic-robotic procedure is extremely complex in such an advanced stage of pregnancy, because the enlarged uterus obscures the intestines and makes access nearly impossible,” he said.
Despite the risks, the team decided to proceed with the surgery, which, due to its extraordinary complexity, lasted many tense hours. It was performed in the women’s operating suite, with senior gynecologists, neonatologists from Schneider Children’s Hospital, and continuous fetal monitoring present throughout.
“At every stage we debated whether to continue or convert to open surgery,” Dr. White recalled. “As long as both mother and fetus remained stable, we pressed on. The operation succeeded, her pain subsided, and she was out of danger. Since this procedure had never been attempted before, I was anxious until the baby was safely born at week 38.”
Leibovich said she did not want surgery that would require early delivery and leave her “with a large scar across my abdomen.”
“I was paralyzed, unable to sleep, screaming from unbearable pain. I understood they would try laparoscopic surgery with very low chances of success, and most likely they’d have to open me up and deliver the baby,” she said. “Dr. White, who is religious, came to the hospital on Shabbat—and that’s when I realized how extraordinary this moment truly was.”
