Ashley Burnett was 20 years old when she learned she had uterine fibroids after experiencing “crippling pain” that caused her to go to the emergency room.
After learning of her diagnosis, doctors performed two procedures: a myomectomy and a fibroid radiofrequency ablation, a procedure that uses heat to target fibroids one by one, reducing their size significantly.
In 2020, Burnett, who was expecting a baby boy with her husband learned the fibroids had returned, which ultimately caused her to lose her baby after going into labor at just 22 weeks.
“It’s difficult for a fibroid and a baby to share the same space,” Dr. Quanita Crable, a Texas Health OBGYN says. “That can cause a lot of miscarriages, early pregnancy loss. That can cause difficulty getting pregnant in the first place.”
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“To deliver a baby, to hear them cry, and to have to say goodbye to them four hours after is pretty difficult,” Burnett shares.
Despite losing their son, Silas, Burnett and her husband still had hopes of growing their family so they turned to Dr. Crable, who performs myomectomies using the robotic-assisted da Vinci Surgical System, for help.
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A “miracle” baby
“I couldn’t do anything about losing him at that point, but I wanted to make sure that going forward, I made the right decision for [my] body next,” she says.
Although the minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery is difficult to perform, it has a quicker recovery time than traditional methods, and it helps preserve uterine function, which can help the large number of women living with fibroids.
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“About 70 to 80% of women have fibroids,” says Dr. Crable. “And they’re more common in African American women.”
The procedure is also helpful for women hoping to conceive.
“I’ve seen a lot of women who are hopeless, crying in my office because they lost a baby or haven’t been able to
