Complex heart surgery helps 7 month old baby breathe easy

BENGALURU: A month ago, seven-months-old Aryan was struggling for each breath as he was suffering from a congenital heart disease. In addition, he weighed a mere 3.3 kilos, which is very low for babies of his age. Aryan’s ailment was complex - the partitioning of the heart was incomplete. Hence he was vulnerable to infections, particularly chest infection. He had been already been hospitalized thrice in the last four months, and his parents were very anxious about him.

In India, very few centres are capable of doing this kind of heart operation, even though the number of children affected with congenital heart disease is approximately 8 out of 1,000 live births. In our country it amounts to 2 lakh children per year. But a complex surgery performed on Aryan by Columbia Asia Hospital on Sarjapur Road, has brought the child back to life.

As the valves that regulated the flow of blood within his heart were incomplete, Aryan’s heart was partitioned into four chambers with two separate valves between them. This was a very complicated heart operation, considering the tender age of the baby.  The risk of post-surgery infections was also very high.

Dr Joseph Xavier, Consultant – Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery, Columbia Asia Hospital, said many of the infants suffering from similar types of heart disease often die because they are not diagnosed correctly at the right time. He also stressed that the government should provide insurance cover for such surgeries, so that it becomes affordable to the poor. After the surgery, Aryan has recovered well with his breathing and feeding back to normal and has also started gaining weight.