The mother trusted the doctor, but he did what no one was supposed to. The little infant’s beating heart was surgically repaired while he was still in his mother’s womb, and another surgery was performed after he was born. Sebastian Havel was born. He had already undergone two surgeries. Sebastian’s unique cardiac abnormalities were treated by the use of a treatment known as a balloon atrial septoplasty or bas.
In just five days before he was delivered, the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto collaborated to complete the procedure, and shortly after delivery, the courageous newborn underwent open heart surgery. In total, he survived more significant medical procedures than the majority of people will encounter in their lifetime.
Whenever you do anything that’s a little out of the ordinary, there’s always a leap of faith in terms of whether you would truly gain from it or not, says the author. The most positive feature of this particular baby and this specific treatment is that everything has worked out almost as good as we could have imagined it would. Everything went much more easily than we had anticipated, Dr.
Rajiv Chaturvedi, a cardiologist who was one of the doctors who operated on Sebastian, told Global News. Sebastian was born with a congenital cardiac abnormality known as TGA, which stands for transposition of the great arteries. One of his cardiac arteries was inverted, meaning that the artery that supplied oxygenated blood to his brain and the body and the artery that supplied blood to his lungs were exchanged places. In addition to TGA, all the walls of his heart were sealed shut, preventing his blood from mixing and escaping to his brain and the rest of his body, as it should have done. Approximately five to 7% of kids born with congenital heart abnormalities have the issue that this little guy has making his situation extremely unique.
He needed a hole in his heart, which doctors discovered was necessary in order to allow for mixing and healthy blood flow. After that, they needed to do an arterial switch procedure. When his mother, Christine Barry, went in for a 20 week scan, she realized something wasn’t quite right. After a while, the technician became quite quiet and stated that she needed to concentrate. According to Barry of Global News, Sebastian’s hands, feet and body were all examined by the ultrasound technician, who also announced that the growing family was expecting a boy to join them.
She, on the other hand, advised them to contact their family doctor as soon as possible. By Monday morning, they’d received a call from their doctor. Our baby’s heart had a problem and we discovered it. As Barry described it, it felt like the world was collapsing around me and I couldn’t believe that this was happening to my son. Sebastian’s delivery may be challenging.
According to the advice of specialist given to Barry and her husband, Christopher Havel, Sebastian may have been born through a cesarean section, which was one option afterwards, doctors would have a three minute window in which to open up his heart. He could suffer brain damage, stroke or even death if he kept going. The other option that physicians suggested was for Sebastian to have surgery while still in the womb. He’d be born through a vaginal birth in this manner. When Barry had the C section, he would be a blue baby who would be sent to the operating room right away.
Sebastian, on the other hand, would be delivered in a more traditional manner if she had the utero operation. As Barry explained, this would allow him to come out in a splash of color and potentially screaming at the top of his lungs, which would be really incredible. As insane as that seemed, I realized it was the only thing we could do at that time. I was willing to go to any length for my baby in order to give him a fighting shot, Barry added. On May 18, they used a needle guided by Sebastian’s mother’s uterus to place a balloon into Sebastian’s heart, which was successful.
Sebastian’s crossed arteries were not addressed by the bas surgery, but it did produce a 3.5 millimeter hole in his septum, which will aid in the delivery of oxygen to Sebastian’s blood once he’s born. The operation is performed through the skin with a needle. There’s no open surgery involved. It’s guided by ultrasound. Consequently, it’s a minimally invasive operation, at least from the perspective of a mother.
In order to reach the baby’s heart, we have to travel through his chest. According to Dr. Edgar Jaggi, director of the fetal cardiac program at Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto, the baby must be perfectly still at this point in time in order to relieve Sebastian’s agony and prevent him from moving during the surgery, doctors administered medicines to put him to sleep. During the process, the needle was threaded into Barry’s abdomen and into her uterus and then into Sebastian’s heart, passing through the atrium on its way there. Following that, the doctors passed a catheter through the needle and into the heart, placing a tiny balloon into the heart in a manner similar to a heart attack patient.
By 23 May, Barry had given birth to a pink, crying child. A second bas procedure was conducted immediately after to ensure Sebastian’s arterial aperture was large enough to accommodate the flow of oxygen and nutrients. Five days later, surgeons performed open heart surgery to realign his arteries so they were in the proper position. Sebastian is now on the mend, despite the fact that it’s been months. He weighs £10 and is growing into a strong and healthy little boy.
In an interview with Global News, Barry described her son as a really serene kid, pretty comfortable, extremely aware of his environment, gazing around in attention. His parents have big expectations and a great deal of affection for their brave baby boy. He should be happy and healthy as he grows up, so that he doesn’t miss out on things that you believe he might miss out on because he’s overworking his heart. Dr. Havill, on the other hand, believes he has a decent chance of just enjoying a fairly regular life.
Their gratitude for saving their son’s life extends to the entire team of doctors who are on standby to assist them in their efforts for the family’s benefit. There were more than 30 professionals on hand to assist them. These included surgeons, anesthesiologist, neonatologist, heart and lung bypass specialists, as well as nurses. This team instilled confidence in us right away, and we never doubted that we would one day be holding our beautiful and healthy boy, Barry said of his experience. What are congenital cardiac defects and how do they manifest themselves?
Congenital refers to something that’s present at birth. Congenital heart defects, commonly known as CHDs, are cardiac disorders that are present at birth in a child or infant. These disorders can have an impact on the shape of the heart as well as its function or both. Chds can range in severity from minor to severe. Chds are the most frequent types of birth defects.
Birth defects are structural alterations on the body that occur at the time of the birth and can affect practically any organ or area of the body. They may have an impact on how the baby appears, how it functions, or both. Birth defects can create problems with overall health, the development of the body, and the way the body functions. Critical congenital heart defects are the most severe types of congenital heart disease. Babies with significant congenital heart defects require surgery or other therapy during the first year of life.
Critical coronary artery disease can cause major health concerns and even death if left untreated. Every year in the United States, approximately one in every 100 births, or about 1% or 400 babies, is born with a cardiac abnormality. Approximately one in every four newborns born with a heart defect, or approximately 25%, has a serious CHD. There are some heart defects that do not require therapy or can be repaired quite readily. Others, such as serious CHDs, may necessitate many surgeries over a period of several years.
Approximately 40,000 births occur in the United States each year due to congenital heart abnormalities, which are the most frequent type of birth abnormality. Bas is typically utilized in newborn children under the age of six weeks, and it’s particularly effective in children with congenital cardiac abnormalities. According to Sick Kids hospital Abas will expand a hole in the heart, letting blood from both sides of the heart to mix more easily, providing more oxygen to reach the baby’s body.
In Sebastian’s instance, a second Bas was conducted after birth to check that the atrial opening was large enough, as well as open heart surgery to reposition the aorta and pulmonary artery to their usual locations, according to the American Heart Association. In this case, it’s believed to be the first time an inutrobas has been performed on a baby who was born with a congenital heart abnormality in which the two main arteries of the heart were reversed by utilizing a balloon catheter.
Surgeons at Six Kids Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital performed the world’s first lifesaving heart surgery on a baby while still in utero in 2009. The fetal intervention allowed the fetus to grow and remain in the mother’s uterus for an additional month, increasing the likelihood of a healthy birth and reducing the likelihood of additional health problems.
An article in the Journal Circulation in 2016 estimated that around 1 million children and 1.4 million adults in the United States were living with a congenital heart defect. In 2010, the study was conducted by the American Heart Association and published by the Journal Circulation. These projections can assist policy makers and healthcare systems in planning for the health needs of the expanding population of adults with coronary artery disease.