Smallest Infant to Undergo Successful Open-Heart Surgery

Serena Brown was born on December 27, 2001, weighing only 1.4 pounds after only a 25 weeks of gestation period. Brown was one of a set of triplets, all of which had complications at birth. Serena was diagnosed with anomalous pulmonary venous return (a rare congenital heart abnormality where the pulmonary veins are attached to the wrong side of the heart) immediately after birth.

Due to this heart problem, which was not related to her premature birth, doctors decided that the surgery was necessary if she were to have a chance of survival. Surgeons usually don't operate on premature babies less than two pounds, but underwent surgery to re-route her veins as a necessary measure.

Although similar surgeries have been done on premature babies, Serena is the smallest and youngest patient. Serena was healthy enough after surgery to transfer hospitals. Although the surgery was a huge success for Serena and medical sciences, she will still face problems associated with being born extremely premature.

At the time of her surgery, Serena's chest was the size of an adult's palm and her heart was the size of a grape ( or "the size of the tip of my thumb,"said Dr. V. Mohan Reddy, chief pediatric surgeon).

The reason I decided to post on this article was because I was completely fascinated at the abilities of modern medicine. Serena Brown weighed less than 1.5 pounds and her heart was the size of a grape, yet surgeons were able to perform a live-saving open heart surgery to re-route her tiny pulmonary vein from the right atria to the left.


Full article can be found at:

http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2002/2/27/smallestInfantToUndergoHeartSurgeryEmergesHealthy