Growing Your Baby - Parenthood from Pregnancy to Pre-school » Amazing Baby Story

25 Weeker Fitted With An External Pacemaker

Lisa — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:05:01 +0000

In a world first, tiny Taylor Gardner has been fitted with a pacemaker bigger than her fragile body.

Born after just 25 weeks and weighing an unbelievable 540g, Taylor’s heart began to fail in the hours after her birth, forcing Melbourne’s Monash Medical Centre surgeons to try the untried.

The cardiac team wired an external pacemaker to her tiny heart, allowing her to stay alive so she can be fitted with a more conventional pacemaker in coming months.

A 19 week ultrasound revealed Taylor had a complete heart block found in 1 in 200,000 babies.

At that time her mother Rebecca Gardner was put on bedrest so that her pregnancy could be monitored.

“It was heart-wrenching, but I wanted her to survive because she is my 11th pregnancy and I only had one child,” Ms Gardner said.

“I just wanted her to be alive. Everything else you push to the back of your mind and then pray and hope.

“You just have to put on a brave face, lots of prayers and hope the surgeons can perform a miracle.

“She’s a fighter and she is feisty. Even though she has such tiny hands, I reckon all the nurses are wrapped around her little finger.”

Nine hours after her birth on May 25, Taylor’s heart rate was getting worse instead of better and she had to be rushed in for a pacemaker. As a result of her condition, her heart beat at between 40-50 beats a minute, rather than 150.

Although only a handful of premature babies in the world had ever been fitted with an external pacemaker – and none less than 750g – Dr Alex Veldman said surgeons had no other choice but to rewrite history.

“It is a bit like flying to the moon – you have to try something that was never attempted before,” he said.

“In a hospital like this we can have all the expertise and all the knowledge to make it as safe as possible, but, in the end, you still have to try to fly this thing.

“It is quite an amazing thing, because the size of the baby’s heart is half the size of a cherry, and to suture these wires on to that heart without injuring it is astounding.”

Five days after the miracle operation, Taylor’s bowel perforated and she needed another major operation.

Dr Veldman said that now she’s made it through the first week of her life, her biggest dangers were behind her.

For even the smallest internal pacemaker, Taylor will have to grow between 1.5kg and 2kg in three months before she is big enough to get one and able to leave the neonatal intensive care unit.

Other Amazing Babies:

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Amazing Baby Doing Well After Her Heart Was Repaired In The Womb

Lisa — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:49:58 +0000

Called a first in Canada, doctors at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children have successfully repaired a baby’s heart while she was still in the womb.

At 30 weeks into her pregnancy, Vicki McKenzie had an ultrasound that showed her developing fetus had critical aortic stenosis, a condition in which the main outlet valve of the left ventricle is severely narrowed.

She was immediately referred Sick Kids and Mount Sinai where doctors explained that waiting to operate after birth would be too risky.

Untreated, her condition would inevitably lead to a lifelong condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). Children with HLHS typically need to have at least three major heart surgeries and are not expected to have a normal lifespan; the 10-year survival rate is only 65 per cent.

During the 37-minute procedure, doctors inserted the device through the mother’s abdomen and then directly into the baby’s heart to induce proper growth and function – and to prevent the child from dying of heart failure at birth.

Amazingly, the procedure allowed the baby, Océane, to remain safely in utero for another month until she was born on April 15.

“Any procedure you can do to a fetus in utero allows the baby to remain in the best intensive care unit that there is,” said Dr. Greg Ryan of Mount Sinai Hospital.

“It allows the baby to become more mature, so if this baby was delivered early, it faced … all of the complications of prematurity.”

Within an hour of the baby’s birth at Mount Sinai, she was whisked to nearby Sick Kids, where doctors fed another balloon catheter into her heart to further expand the aortic valve. A third followed a couple of weeks later.

Even though this utero surgery has been performed several times in the U.S., this is the first successfully surgery of it’s kind in Canada. The team of doctors attempted the procedure on two other much earlier fetuses. Neither survived.

“We have learned that what was a theoretical possibility is an actual possibility,” said Ryan.

“And we’ve not only seen that we can not just fix the valve, but we’ve seen that the left ventricle can recover. That’s what we were hoping would happen, but we were not entirely certain that it would happen until we saw it.”

Oceane is now doing well and expected to lead a normal childhood.

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PHOTOCREDIT:WIKI

Toddlers Close Encounter With A Bengal Tiger

Lisa — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:21:32 +0000

These breathtaking pictures appear to show a little girl seconds away from becoming a hungry tiger’s lunch.

Little Avery Thompson seems oblivious to the 370lb Royal White Bengal Tiger as he stretches out a massive paw in an attempt to touch her. But, despite appearances, the toddler is perfectly safe – she and Almos the tiger are separated by a thick pane of glass. Keen amateur wildlife photographer Dyrk Daniels was photographing the Bengal Tigers.

Little Avery had her back to the glass at first when Almos approached her, so she had no idea the tiger was that close.

{SPLASH}

Baby Born With Heart, Liver Outside of Body

Lisa — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:32:34 +0000

Surgeons in India will attempt to save the life of a baby girl who was born with her heart and part of her liver growing outside her body.

The four-day-old girl is currently being cared for at the Bengal medical college on the outskirts of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri.

“This is a very rare case, we are not sure if we can perform surgery to put her heart and liver back, but we’ll try our best,” a child specialist Miridula Chatterjee said.

In the 3 1/2 years I have been writing this site, I have read about many doctors performing some pretty amazing miracles. Lets hope this team can do something great with this baby.

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UK Mom Welcomes World’s First Baby After Full Ovary Transplant

Lisa — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:28:40 +0000

A 38-year-old woman from London has welcomed the world’s first baby conceived after a full ovary transplant.

The new mom, who received an ovary donated by her identical twin sister, delivered a healthy daughter weighing 7lb 15oz today, by Caesarean section.

The birth is the ninth reported worldwide after ovarian tissue was transplanted from one sister to another, but the first in which an entire ovary was used.

The woman, who lives in London but has German nationality, became infertile at the age of 15 when she suffered premature ovarian failure and went through the menopause. Her identical twin, however, remains fertile and agreed to donate an ovary to her sister.

The transplant occurred last year at the Infertility Centre of St Louis in Missouri.

The donor twin, who lives in Vancouver, Canada, had not seen her sister for four years before the operation. The two were re-united in St. Louis just before the operation.

The first birth from transplanted ovary tissue took place in 2005, to Stephanie Yarber, an American woman, whose donor was her identical twin sister, Melanie Morgan.

Scientists caution that ovarian transplants from women to women are unlikely to benefit more than a few patients, mostly identical twins. For the operation to work, it is necessary to have a donor who is a precise tissue match.

24 Week Baby Kept Alive With Bubble Wrap

Lisa — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:41:53 +0000

I am always amazed at the lengths that doctors will go to to keep a micro-preemie alive.

When Gregor Craig arrived at just 24 weeks weighing a tiny 1lb 14oz, he was so small that his father’s wedding ring fitted over his arm.

His chances of survival were slim, but doctors wanted to give him every chance.

So they wrapped him in the bubble wrap to keep him warm. Hospitals often use plastic wrap to help premature babies retain their body heat, but this was the first time the doctors in Kintyre, western Scotland, had used the bubble variety.

At just 24 weeks gestation Gregor’s mom began suffering severe stomach pain. Doctors found that her she was suffering from a urinary tract infection that triggered labor and they couldn’t stop the baby from arriving.

After he arrived, doctors only gave Gregor a 10 per cent chance of survival.

After spending 17 weeks in the special care nursery, this little fighter has persevered through many set backs including laser eye surgery at ten weeks to stop him going blind as the blood vessels in his eyes hadn’t developed properly.

When Gregor reached 7lb, he was allowed home, even though he needs to still have daily oxygen, and his parents have had to learn how to resuscitate him if necessary.

Mrs Craig said: ‘He is now a happy six-month-old and incredibly all he seems to have is some slight hearing problems. It’s a small price to pay for having him here with us.’

While it is common to wrap babies this small in plastic wrap second after birth to maintain their body temperature, I am not sure what benefit the bubbles adds…

Every baby that arrives and survives at this gestation is a miracle. We wish this little fighter the best for the future.

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Surgeons Remove 8lb Tumour From East Timorese Baby

Lisa — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:30:45 +0000

In a life-saving operation, volunteer surgeons at New Zealand’s Wellington Hospital East have removed a tumour from a Timorese baby that weighed a third of his body weight.

The 8lb tumour was removed by in the capital at the weekend.

The large mass would have eventually killed the 14-month-old boy had the surgical team not stepped in, said Bill Day, chairman of the Wellington Hospital and Health Foundation and local Rotary Club president – which organised the trip to New Zealand.

Little Alex Gonzaga and his mother Elisa Da Conceicao flew to Wellington from Dili about two weeks ago for the operation involving a 10-strong surgical team.

Everything went according to plan and the benign tumour was removed from around his crucial organs in record time – about two hours – on Sunday.

“It has just been stunning, everyone pitching in to save his life,” Mr Day said.

Alex, who weighed about 24lbs before the surgery, is expected to make a full recovery and will be ready to go home in a few days.

Alex’s tumour was spotted by a doctor in East Timor, a country in Southeast Asia. He was examined further on a visiting medical ship and referred to the Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children program (Romac).

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Documentary Spotlights Incredible Stories Of Seriously Ill Children

Lisa — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:27:23 +0000

Sean weighed 2 pounds, 13 ounces at birth. He had severe heart, lung and intestinal complications. Doctors did not think he would survive. In a Documentary featuring the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, directed my Academy Award winner Cynthia Wade takes you through this amazing baby’s journey.

For those who have never seen an extremely premature baby, this video is an eye opener.

It also spotlights the amazing work that dedicated health professionals are doing.

For more information and to see the entire series, go to www.pchhandprints.org.

Baby Found Alive After Spending 4 Days in Pool of Mud

Lisa — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:20:51 +0000

After flash floods killed at least 41 people in central Algeria this week, a baby was found alive by rescuers after spending four days in a pool of mud.

“It’s a miracle, really a miracle to find it alive after all this time,” the town governor of Ghardaia, Yahia Fahim, told national radio. The state-run APS news agency said the 4-month-old baby appeared in good health after being discovered late Saturday and had been handed to a family while authorities looked for its parents.

The governor has also said the baby’s photo would be posted in all local media for the family to recognize it.

It is not known whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

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Surgeons Use Ping-Pong Ball to Save Toddler’s Life

Lisa — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:05:09 +0000

In a world first, an Australian surgeon has used a simple ping-pong ball to keep liver transplant patient Mackenzie Argaet alive.

Dr. Albert Shun, from The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, used the unusual approach when confronted with a medical problem while operating on the 2-year-old girl.

Born with a rare gastrointestinal disorder known as biliary atresia, Mackenzie needed the life-saving operation earlier this year.

But after inserting a portion of an adult-size liver in the little girl, Shun discovered it was too big and was placing pressure on her blood vessels which could have been fatal.

Having heard about the use of ping-pong balls in operations overseas, he decided to test their suitability in transplant surgery.

“I was using a sponge as a back-up purpose but there was no way I could close her up the way it was,” he said. “She is the first (transplant patient) in the world that the ping-pongs have been used for these purposes.”

In Mackenzie’s case, the ball keeps the liver off the arteries. Since her operation, Shun and his team have performed the procedure several times.

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