After Rare Surgery, Infant Gets New Life!

After Rare Surgery, Infant Gets New Life!The time when Sriya, a two-and-a-half month old baby, was admitted to the emergency ward at Malar Hospitals on April 13, the doctors could not feel the pulse on her arms or legs.

The doctors said the blood pressure level of the baby was too low, and she was hardly breathing.

Sriya’s mother Lavanya said, “We took her to a paediatrician who suspected a heart murmur.”

However, the parents of the baby were distressed as they thought they had neglected the heart murmer' noticed by a doctor a few days back. 

The doctors at Malar Hospital put Sriya on breathing machine (ventilator) for about 48 hours in order to stabilize her heart. 

The doctors diagnosed Sriya with a leak in her mitral valve, an extremely rare condition in newborns of her age. They wanted to perform one of the rarest valve repair surgical operation on her.

Interventional cardiologist Dr. R Ravikumar, who first attended on her, said, “The acidity of her blood was so high that it damaged the mitral valve of the heart. She was hardly breathing and her lung pressure was very high.”

The group of expert doctors, which comprise Dr. R Ravikumar, Dr. G Prabhakaran, paediatrician and neo-natologist; Dr. K G Suresh Rao, cardiac anaesthesiologist along with Dr. Balakrishnan performed a three-hour-long surgery to mend the leaking mitral valve.

Dr. Balakrishnan said, “We couldn't replace the valve with an artificial one since those available in the market are meant for adults. Even if we tailored one, it would not grow with the child.”

Therefore, the surgeons used an improvised ring made of gore-tex together with atrial tissue to replace the heart valve. 

The doctors said that the baby showed amazing improvement after the surgical procedure. 

"Her valve is completely normal now and will grow with the child," Dr. Balakrishnan added.

Declaring Sriya fit to go home, Dr. Ravi Kumar think that Sriya will not require another surgery.