Rohit Shishodia
Doctors at Mumbai’s Bai Jerbai Wadia Hospital for Children have successfully treated a 10-day-old baby boy with rare heart defects by carrying out a high-risk open heart surgery on him. The baby, who had total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC), a congenital cardiac problem, underwent surgery that spanned for five hours.

TAPVC is a heart disease that affects pulmonary veins along with sepsis. It causes breathing difficulty and low oxygen level to the affected baby. 10 in 1,000 babies have congenital heart defects, and 1 in 1,00,000 have this disease.

The child needed nearly twenty days of ventilation, and critical care to get out of life-threatening risk. After, open-heart surgery, the child has accepted feeds and is growing well.

The baby was one of the twins of Komal Ughade, a housewife, and her husband Ramchandra Ughade, who is a farmer from Shahapur in Thane district. They were happy on the arrival of their twin baby boys, one weighing 1 kg and the other 2 kg, on December 1, 2019, by cesarean section. But, their happiness was short-lived as they came to know that one of the babies condition was critical.

Dr Biswa Panda, Paediatric Cardiac Surgeon, Bai Jerbai Wadia Hospital For Children, said, “On evaluating the baby via echocardiography, it was revealed that the baby had a complex congenital cardiac problem known as Obstructed  TAPVC.”

Dr Panda added that the pulmonary veins were connected to the right chamber of the heart instead of the left side, and surgery was the only treatment for survival. Also, the baby was extremely weak and septic.

“The baby displayed symptoms like breathing problems and low oxygen levels, soon after birth. In view of obstruction to this anomalous venous connection, there was no opportunity to wait and treat the baby for sepsis,” he added.

Dr Panda explained, “Emergency major open-heart surgery spanning five hours corrected the baby’s anatomical problem and normalized the heart. The pulmonary veins are reconnected to the left atrium and the atrial septal defect was closed.”

He added that in view of the major debility and preoperative sepsis, the child required nearly twenty five days on ventilator and critical care to get out of the life-threatening problem.