In Spain, a 2-month-old baby girl has become the youngest heart transplant recipient in the world.
- This operation offers hope to all future babies who are too young to use ventricular support devices.
- The donor’s little heart traveled from another Spanish region and had to be picked up on the way after it stopped beating.
- The operation went well and little Naiara is now recovering in hospital.
It’s a small miracle. At the Gregorio Marañon Hospital in Madrid, a baby girl, just 2 months old, was saved thanks to a heart transplant and became the youngest heart transplant patient in the world. This medical feat paves the way for large numbers of infants in need of heart transplants who are too young to use ventricular support devices until a suitable donor is found.
España realiza el primer #transplant of corazón in a baby of #donating in asistolia y grupo sanguíneo incompatible in todo el mundo
Thanks to the collaboration between #CCAANaiara ha podido ser trasplantada en el Hospital Gregorio Marañón de #Madrid ????????https://t.co/rksyG2XhgK pic.twitter.com/t0YVEXA9ZH
— Organization National de Trasplantes (@ONT_esp) May 17, 2021
The heart to be transplanted has stopped
Little Naiara was diagnosed with congenital heart disease before she was born. Very quickly, surgery appeared to be the only way to save her. “He’s the smallest baby we’ve had for a heart transplant, and 24 hours before the surgery, his condition got a lot worse. If she hadn’t had a transplant, she probably wouldn’t be here.”, Manuela Camino, the head of the children’s heart transplant unit at the Madrid hospital, told Reuters.
The operation was very delicate, not only because the little one weighed only 3.2 kilograms but also because the donor was in a hospital in another region. During his journey to the Gregorio Marañon Hospital, the donor’s little heart even stopped beating for a few minutes. A recovery procedure had to be carried out so as not to lose it. To make matters worse, the donor was of a different blood type than the recipient. “It was twice as magical”, exclaimed Juan Miguel Gil Jaurena, the person in charge of cardiac surgery for children at the Madrid hospital. The latter even explained that such techniques did not exist for young children three years ago and that they had never been put into practice on such a small baby.
The operation went well and little Naiara is now recovering in hospital.
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