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Tests over; Baby Noor leaves hospitalSurgery scheduled for Iraqi child with potentially fatal birth defect
 Noor is carried through the Atlanta airport, where an ambulance was waiting to take her to a hospital. HEALTH LIBRARYHOW TO HELPDonations can be sent to: Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church 4283 Chapel Hill Road Douglasville, Georgia 30135 www.lifeover.org SPECIAL REPORT
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- With a series of tests completed before surgery tentatively scheduled for Monday, an Atlanta hospital discharged a 3-month-old Iraqi girl flown to the United States for a life-saving operation. Specialty physicians at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta determined treatment options for Baby Noor, who has spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal column fails to completely close. Noor, her father and grandmother are staying with a host family in Atlanta, arranged by Childspring International, an Atlanta-based national charity. Noor "is in good condition, is responsive and smiling and seemingly resting comfortably," neurosurgeon Dr. Roger Hudgins, who will perform the surgery, said after the initial evaluation. Noor captured the hearts of Georgia National Guardsmen in Iraq who discovered the child during a routine search of the family's Baghdad home last month. "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," Lt. Jeff Morgan said last week. "And I knew if I had the opportunity whatsoever to save my daughter's life I would do everything possible." Iraqi doctors had told her parents she would live only 45 days. Noor arrived Saturday in Atlanta, where she was taken to the hospital for evaluation. Monday's surgery will be tricky. At a news conference Saturday, Hudgins said the surgery will be complicated because skin has already grown over Noor's exposed spinal column. This has helped prevent infection -- which could kill Noor -- but it will make the surgery more tedious. The surgery is typically performed in the United States just after birth while the spinal column is exposed, said Hudgins, who has performed this type of surgery on two children, including an 8-year-old. Noor and her family could be in the United States for as long as two months for her recovery. Spina bifida, which can cause crippling effects and neurological damage, is the most common of the birth defects known as neural tube defects. They affect 1,500 to 2,000 babies born in the United States each year, according to the March of Dimes. About 70,000 people in the United States are living with spina bifida, according to the Spina Bifida Association. 
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