Pioneering surgery saves baby born 3 months early

It is amazing to me to see where medical technology has gotten to, this is amazing and yet we kill millions of these 'non'lives' a year. I guess the little babay is ALIVE after all isn't it?


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.




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