PITTSBURGH —
The first time Dr. Victor Morell saw Aiden Braatz, the 2-month-old baby was struggling to survive because his heart’s valves were just not allowing enough blood to be pumped.
Aiden needed help, but the options were limited, Morell recalled. Although valve replacement technology has come a long way, the work is primarily devoted to adults.
“It is a problem,” Morell said. “We don’t have good replacement stuff for little babies. It could be a nightmare to deal with stuff like that.”
In July, Morell and Aiden’s parents, Angela and Travis Braatz of Cresson, chose the least radical option to help the ailing infant – a valve repair operation.
Valve repair in a heart so small is basically a plastic surgery procedure, Morell said. He opened up Aiden’s heart to painstakingly rebuild the aortic and mitral valves to allow more blood flow. Everyone knew the prognosis for success was not good.
Although Aiden responded well at first, it was barely three month later that he was back in Morell’s operating room. This time there were even fewer options.
By the end of the five-hour operation, Aiden essentially had three valves replaced.
Morell took out Aiden’s healthy pulmonary valve and moved it into the aortic valve position. A tiny mechanical valve was inserted to replace the mitral valve, and a donor’s blood vessel was implanted to act as the pulmonary valve.
“They are pretty big operations,” Morell said. “He was pretty ill. We had no choice. We had to fix all these things.”
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