What a scare — a woman and her husband for the 20-week checkup on her pregnancy and received… well… rather shocking results. The ultrasound showed that her baby’s heart was definitely not developing properly.

 

Aiden, their unborn son, was diagnosed with a serious condition called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). Better yet, the condition occurs in 1 of 6,000 children. The fetus’ left ventricle, mitral valve and aortic valve severely under-develop within this condition. This, sadly, in turn, causes the left side of the heart to stop developing due to the lack of blood flow. You may be able to determine that this makes the right side of the heart pump twice as hard.

 

Understand the Complications

 

A mother’s baby will have a fully-functioning heart within her womb specifically from the umbilical cord. Breathing is also done by the mother.

 

Once the umbilical cord is cut, a ‘call-to-action’ goes to the newborn’s lungs. This allows the passage to open and oxygenate the heart. With complications, this process is quite hard for a new baby. Children born with this issue will often experience multi-system failure and other life-threatening challenges.

 

Born on May 19, Aiden underwent his first surgery at four days old! Doctors reconstructed the aorta and other parts of his heart so that oxygenated blood could functionally flow through his body with his right ventricle being the main pumping source. He pushed through his second surgery where doctors did more work to ensure proper functionality after he outgrew artificial materials put in his heart to correct blood flow. With two down and one to go, Aiden is fighting like a trooper. It has been quite a rare journey that many kids don’t experience. 

 

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