Umbilical hernias are the most common type of hernias that we see in horses. We see quite a few of these every year. A hernia is a defect in the body wall. An umbilical hernia is when such a defect occurs at the location of the umbilicus (belly button). There are a couple of different ways that have evolved to correct these hernias, but I still think surgery is the best option. Sorry, I did not get any pictures of this hernia with horse still standing. When this yearling was still standing the hernia sac was about the size of a softball. I could place three fingers through the defect in the body wall. This first picture is of the horse lying on her back on the surgery table. The hernia sac does not look quite as large, because the abdominal contents that are in hernia when the horse is standing, fall back into the abdomen when she is on her back.
Here is what it looks like after the surgical drape is in place.
This is the horse on the surgery table, connected to the anesthesia machine.
In this picture I am removing the overlying loose skin.
Here I am dissecting down to the hernia ring—getting right down to the sides of the body wall on all sides of the defect.
The next step is to place sutures across the hernia, to bring the body wall back together and keep it there.
As in this picture, in most hernias we repair all of the sutures are pre-placed and then they are all tied one right after the other. This is what it looks like with all of the sutures placed.
This is what the hernia looks like once all of the sutures are tied. You can see that the body wall defect is now closed.
All that is left is to close the skin. In this case I reapposed the skin with surgical staples.
The end.
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