Mukundapur: A 10-day-old baby whose one of the heart valves was blocked and a pumping chamber hadn't fully formed got a new lease of life on Saturday.
The blue baby from Silchar landed in the city on Friday after being checked in hospitals in Shillong and Guwahati.
His condition has improved since an interventional procedure at AMRI Mukundapur on Saturday and he has turned pink, a doctor at the hospital said.
He has started to breastfeed for the first time and will probably be discharged early next week, the doctor said.
An echocardiography had revealed that the pulmonary valve was underdeveloped. As the valve didn't open, there was hardly any blood flow to the lungs.
"As a result, deoxygenated blood was mixing with pure blood through a natural hole in the heart, called PFO, turning the baby blue," Dhritabrata Das, consultant paediatric cardiologist at the hospital who operated on the baby, said.
But another hole in the heart, which keeps babies alive in the womb although they don't breathe on their own, came to his rescue.
"The baby survived on a small patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), which is the natural connection of two main arteries coming out of the heart, allowing some blood flow to his lungs. This natural connection normally closes within few days of birth. Fortunately, this remained open and kept the baby alive," Das said.
Doctors first put the baby on lifesaving medication to keep the duct open.
Normally, doctors would have reach the blocked pulmonary valve through a vein in the leg. But the right side ventricle was too small to do that, Das said.
"Instead, we had to go through an artery. We could take this route, however, only because of the PDA. We used it to reach the blocked valve and used a small balloon to establish the normal route of blood flow," Das said.
After the procedure, called retrograde balloon pulmonary valvotomy, blood started flowing into the lungs, allowing oxygen to purify it.
Six to eight in 1,000 people have cardiac problems, and only two to three per cent in this group suffer from critical pulmonary stenosis with duct dependent pulmonary circulation. But its incidence in newborns is "very rare".
The parents of the baby, Saidul Alam Barbhuiya, a businessman, and Heli Begum Mazumder, were unsure if their firstborn would survive. Doctors at Silchar, Shillong and Guwahati had failed to diagnose the problem.
"We were so worried... we have been travelling with him from the second day of his birth. On the flight from Guwahati to Calcutta, a doctor accompanied us. The child was on oxygen all the while. Now, he is much better," Barbhuiya said.
The baby has turned from blue to pink and the blood-oxygen level is in the safe zone, Das said.
It will take some more time to bring it to the normal level because the right pump grows with the flow of blood. "We hope he won't need any further cardiac intervention."
SOURCE: telegraphindia.com
No comments:
Post a Comment