Mumbai Doctors fix an 11-day infant’s ‘half heart’.
Dhanya Nair from Kalyan was five months pregnant when an ultrasound scan revealed that her child had hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a rare condition that affects one in 10,000 births. It is a condition in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped. In HLHS, unlike in a normal heart, the left side is so underdeveloped that it is unable to pump blood to the body. When she was told that her baby had half a heart, instead of terminating the pregnancy, she decided to find ways to help her baby at birth.
“I was sure that I wanted to give birth to my child and my family was very supportive,” she said. Along with her husband, she went to Wadia hospital in Parel, Mumbai. The doctors at the hospital started planning for the baby’s birth. “Within an hour of birth, we transferred the baby to the NICU to give special medications to prepare her for the surgery,” said cardiologist Dr Shreepal Jain.
The baby was just 11 days old when on October 2 when she underwent a six-hour-long procedure called Hybrid Norwood surgery to fix her heart temporarily for six months. Dr Jain and pediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Biswa Panda performed the surgery.
First, they fixed a hole between the heart’s two upper chambers to prevent the mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. “Next, we opened the chest wall and put a band on the lung arteries to restrict the amount of blood flowing into lungs, said Dr Panda. Finally, they placed a metallic stent in an artery and completed the procedure.
Pediatric cardiac surgeon Suresh Rao said, “In India, we don’t see as many HLHS cases because of social peculiarities as many parents-to-be may want to terminate pregnancies. Only IVF babies or cases where parents are keen to go ahead in such cases.”
The baby will need another surgery when she turns six months old. The final surgery will be done before she turns three. Doctors also said that this is the first hybrid procedure performed in western India. The baby is now two months old and is doing well.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/wadia-hospital-docs-fix-11-day-olds-half-heart/articleshow/66853444.cms