Surgery for heart defects for babies has not yet been born

Canadian doctors successfully operated a rare congenital heart defect for a boy right in the abdomen through the mother's uterus.

During her pregnancy, 25-year-old Kristine Barry, from Barrie, Central Ontario (Canada), was informed by doctors that the child in her abdomen was suffering from a rare heart defect known as a moving island. circuit.

This is the most dangerous form of malformations in congenital heart defects with a very high mortality rate without early surgical intervention. Arterial root malformation occurs due to abnormalities in the process of heart formation from the embryo, leading to the pulmonary artery and the aorta exchanging places.

Normally, oxygen-rich blood is ejected from the left ventricle through the aorta to feed the body, while the pulmonary artery is the 'route' that brings oxygen-poor blood from the right ventricle to the lungs. In the lungs, oxygenated blood returns to the left ventricle from there through the aorta, into a circulatory system. In case of artery island malformation, this is completely reversed.

Kristine Barry and his wife happily hugged their son.(Photo: CBC News).

The belly child receives the necessary oxygen and nutrients from the mother through the umbilical cord, so this deformity is not life-threatening. However, when born, the child's circulatory system will not be able to circulate oxygen and will die after only a short time. Therefore, the doctors decided to have surgical intervention before the boy named Sebastian was born.

Doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital and Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto have decided to use an open septal method (Balloon Atrial Septoplasty) or Rashkind procedure (made by Rashkind and Miller in 1966). . Doctors inserted a ball into Sebastian's heart to expand the ventricular septal passage through the mother's uterus. The advantage of this procedure is that it is relatively safe, the risk of death is very low.

Two months after the operation, little Sebastian was born with a healthy heart in the joy of his parents.

Kristine Barry said she felt happy and unable to express words when welcoming her darling. During pregnancy, she is warned by doctors that she will see her son in a pale shape due to lack of oxygen and will soon have to leave her baby."The miracle came. My son was pink and cried loudly," the mother shared.

The doctors told the couple that Sebastian's scar from the heart surgery on the baby's chest will gradually disappear, and will become invisible when mature. Sebastian can play football, hockey, go to college, and have a normal life.

Surgery for babies right from the womb is not a rare thing for medical progress. Before Sebastian, in 2013, another boy named Juan Paladino from Uruguay also had surgery to remove a heart tumor when he was 21 weeks old. After discovering the tumor in Juan's heart during an ultrasound, his parents went everywhere to find a cure for his unborn son. Fortunately, the doctors at Philadelphia Hospital (USA) agreed to surgery and Juan was saved.