Complications such as pneumonia, other infections or kidney damage can occur but most babies recover from these. Most babies with interruption of the aorta will survive surgery and go on to lead normal lives, but there is a small risk (about 2 in 100) of the baby dying at or shortly after the operation.
Sometimes we will delay surgery for several days to get the baby as well as possible. Prostin relaxes the muscles in the wall of the duct, allowing it to open up so that blood can flow again to the lower half of the body. First of all a medicine called prostin is given as a continuous injection into one of the baby‘s veins. Surgery is necessary to repair the aorta and to close the VSD, but before this is carried out it is important to get the baby as well as possible if the baby is to survive.
Usually only simple tests such as an ultrasound scan of the heart (an “echo”), and an x-ray of the chest are required When this happens in a baby with an interrupted aortic arch the baby becomes extremely ill because no blood reaches the lower half of the body, making it difficult for the heart to pump normally and the baby will die without treatment. However, the duct is designed to close itself off (it has muscles in its wall) within the first week or so after birth because it is no longer required in the normal circulation.
For this reason most babies with interrupted aortic arch are well before birth and appear perfectly well immediately after birth. The duct allows blood to get to the lower half of the body from the pulmonary artery. The blockage usually occurs just after the aorta has given off branches to supply the head and arms with blood, preventing normal circulation to the lower half of the body.īabies with this abnormality also have a hole between the two main pumping chambers of the heart (a ventricular septal defect, or VSD).īefore birth the two main arteries coming off the heart (one leading to the lungs, the pulmonary artery and one leading to the body, the aorta) are joined together by a short blood vessel called the arterial duct. This is a very serious heart condition in which there is a complete blockage in the main artery (the aorta) which comes off the heart to feed the body with blood.
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