six month old baby lives - miracle for sure
 

Pioneering surgery saves baby born 3 months early
Doctors fix flaw in Jerrick De Leon's grape-size heart

(CNN) -- The pediatric surgeon who performed open-heart surgery on a one-week-old baby with a heart the size of a grape said Thursday it was "a wonderful feeling" to be able to save his life.

Surgeons at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital believe that Jerrick De Leon, born more than 13 weeks early, is the smallest baby ever to survive an open-heart procedure called an arterial switch.

The hospital said Jerrick is expected to have a normal life, barring any medical complications from his premature birth.

It said he will be placed on antibiotics as a precaution.

At the time of his operation, on February 6, Jerrick weighed just over 1.5 pounds (700 grams), said his surgeon, Dr. V. Mohan Reddy. Reddy, chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and a professor at Stanford's medical school, specializes in performing surgery on extremely small infants.

Reddy said he knew he could repair the type of heart defect the baby had, but "the complicating fact was the baby was too small and very, very premature."

Still, Reddy said he was "very confident I would be able to take care of this baby."

Jerrick was airlifted to the hospital from southern California on February 4.

His mother, Maria Lourdes De Leon, a pediatric physician herself, said Jerrick's doctors had given him no chance of survival.

"It was very difficult. I was surrendering to whatever comes," she told reporters at a news conference with Reddy.

Lourdes said she felt an enormous relief when the operation was deemed successful.

"There have been ups and downs, but he's a feisty little one. He's very strong," she said.

Lourdes told CNN on Thursday that she was "the luckiest mother around to be able to find someone like Dr. Reddy who was able to do the heart surgery for my baby."

The surgery involved switching two arteries that route blood out of the heart: the aorta and the pulmonary artery.

When Jerrick was born, his heart was sending oxygenated blood back and forth between the heart and the lungs, depriving his body of oxygen-rich blood.

In diameter, the arteries were the size of the tip of a pencil, Reddy said, and the aorta was 3 millimeters, or about one-eighth of an inch, long. His chest was the length of the doctor's finger.

Reddy said he took the case after receiving a call from a cardiac surgeon in Los Angeles.

He said he told the doctor the risk was very high, but he felt the Stanford hospital had the most experience.

The hospital has been doing similar surgeries for 12 years, and its surgeons have performed more than 150 in children weighing under about 4.5 pounds (2 kilograms), Reddy said.

The most serious complicating factors were the baby's premature birth and his size, Reddy said. During surgery, "We have to really be very gentle and careful. Everything you do has to be very scaled down and meticulous."

Jerrick's surgery took two and a half hours. The entire procedure, including preparation, lasted six.

Doctors said he is expected to remain in the hospital for six to eight more weeks, until he is about 30 weeks old.

At that time, Jerrick may be well enough to be transferred to a hospital in Southern California.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/02/17...ery/index.html

And this is news, why? :confused:

Her heart was the size of a grape - that is AMAZING to me :shrug:

Oh yea, no posting of miracles here. Don't we know that? Any sign that there is a higher being is just unacceptable. We can't thwart liberal’s belief that they are gods!

Amazing to me to, but then again we actually appear to have hearts.

And how do you think this information is going to be used?

I was posting it to show how far the miracles of medical science have come and to say I was happy for this kid. I do not care how anyones uses it. If you are implying it has some application to Roe - it does not. She was 13 weeks premature which is a far cry from the end of the first trimester :shrug: Thus, I was not posting for that :cool:

I think it is an awsome story!!!! :nod: Truely amazing what can be done and that this baby will probably lead a normal life after having his tiny heart operated on.

We've been able to sustain life outside the womb at six months for quite some time now.
Of course it has implications to Roe. Otherwise they wouldn't ****ing report it.

I know we have. That is why I did not think Roe was applicable, etc.

They operated on the heart. That is the reason. This was the first surgery of that type where the infant survived according to the article. That is why I posted it - that is the medical miracle I and they were talking about. I think that we can do that is huge and provides hope for the future :shrug: If this was my baby - I would be happy :shrug:

I think it is possible that it is both in the sense that God provided man with a brain and that brain caused this. But, I know not everyone does not believe in God :cool:

Credit is do to me and only me!

Yep...sounds like a liberal.

How about sounds like someone who doesn't believe one's personal/religious beliefs should be imposed on everybody else? If the surgeon did the surgery and it was a success, then the surgeon deserves the credit for it. Try applying logic instead of theology to things sometime.
And stop making everything a case of liberal vs. conservative. It gets very tiresome and you end up looking like a fool every time.

I never said that the surgeon shouldn't get credit, of course he should!

And ultimately dear, everything comes down to liberals vs. conservatives, it's the one constant right now in this country. Conservatives believe we were created in the image of God, liberals believe that they are god!

Buddah, Yaheweh, Jehova, etc...

All manifestations of God.

Techinically we all worship the same God (now what we believe of that God maybe different, but still one God).

Wow ur really hardcore Brownie, this is just an amazing surgery and makes u want to step back and think, God or no God, great amazing miracles still happen in our world, and that is something to savour, and treasure, and remember in realising there is always hope in this small little world.

Very astute and nicely put observation; I would enjoy more posters like you, people who have actual compassion. And I do thank God everyday for small miracles such as this baby, which gives hope for the world.

I think you generalize entirely too much and see the world through a set of blinders. Many liberals believe very much in God and are very devout in their chosen religion, but they also allow themselves something called individual thought - the questioning of what one is taught and to decide for one's self what is right and true and what isn't. This does not mean that they believe they are god.

If anyone on this board seems to have a "god complex" it's you. You spout all kinds of insults and nastiness and basically tell everybody who disagrees that they are evil and going to hell. You won't even consider anybody's opinion but your own because, being God, you are right and they should bend to such perfection in morals and character and see the light. It's complete and utter bull**** only you don't seem to realize it.

I have never not once, not ever EVER EVER EVER said that anyone is "evil or going to hell" on this board! NEVER! I repeat, NEVER!

By constantly stating that abortion is murder and that anybody who is pro choice is basically guilty of murder, you are implying that they are in fact evil. My previous statement was ill-worded and I do apologize for that, but I don't take back the basic idea of what was said.

Thanks Brownie, it is not important to make an issue out of everything, jsut sit back for a moment, and think how great things are for you, it is important to help others BUT NOT if it means disadvantaging another human.

It is all well and good to have valid political debates but I don't think that it is fair, anyone should be demonised for their views, I am what in America would be considered a liberal, but you get nothing from a lot of pity squabbling.

I'm glad this little one made it though. My daughter was 13 weeks early. She was 2 lbs. 12 oz., and in very good condition. Stories of prematurity always get my attention.

For the record, that would be fine with me as I think all of the theologies refer essentially to the same being :cool: and I do not expect anyone to see it like that, etc. :cool: Interestingly, I think if more Christians realized this, there wold be FAR more tolerance in the world - but instead all we seem to get is unless you follow Pat Robertson's version of the road to Heaven, which includes a $20 for him :mad:

Well, that def. has moved significantly to the right and conservative has grown to mean an intolerant far religious right quasi radical :nos: I mean being a conservative is supposed to mean the less govt. intrusion in your life the better. Yet, under W, who falsely touts himself as a conservative, we have more govt. intrusion than ever and he advocates more; W also is the biggest borow and spend liberal I have ever scene - I mean trillions in debt in three years is just not conservative by any definition :shrug:

At the risk of sounding like "someone" on this board - I too enjoy little miracles such as this....and here's a news flash for said poster...some liberals actually believe in God :eek:

I do too....and I am very liberal and believe in a higher power. :thumbsup:

I am a walking talking miracle!
 

I myself was a 24 week baby, I was 14 weeks premature, and in 1958, that was no small feat. I was born in the only hospital in Northern CA that had a preemie unit, and my mom and dad spent the first 24hours of my life keeping my heart going manually (its too hard to explain in words, but basically they had two fingers over two other fingers, pressing lightly on my chest to keep a steady rhythm) I was also born deaf but nobody knew because I was reading lips and talking (tho a bit LOUD ar ar). The first time anyone got a clue I couldnt hear was at my routine hearing test in kindergarten. I tell people I used to be brilliant. now I am just a former childhood prodigy. oh well.

anyway, Jason, I understood right away why you posted that article, the same exact point (heart the size of a grape) stood out to me....having been that small myself once upon a time (smaller even by one week!) I can appreciate the tremendous feat those surgeons accomplished.

as for the possibility that this might open up a door for pro-lifers to use, I can tell you that I was extremely lucky to have made it, and the fact that I was female was part of the reason (more preemie girls survive than males) but I know that it takes tremendous medical equipment, resources, personnel and money. I see these sorts of miracle stories being more along the lines of the exception rather than the rule regardless of how advanced our medicine becomes. It is just too expensive to deal with preemies on any large scale basis. Just my 2cents.

:jumpsonwagon: Me too! :blob1: