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A mother recalls the fear she felt at the birth of her son rush to surgery At only 10 days old – with a small baby Heart Walnut shaped.
Addison Watts was from Norwich Diagnosed with heart defect Tetralogy of Fallot was called during his mother’s reign. pregnancyWhere? Blood Will not flow properly around his body.
This is one of the most common heart defectsAffects approximately one in every 3,600 births in the UK, according to British Heart Foundation (BHF). This causes babies to be born with holes Heart and a narrowed pulmonary valve, in which the body’s main artery is growing in the wrong place.
In most cases, babies will have surgery to treat Tetralogy of Fallot when they are at least six months old. But when Addison was less than two weeks old, she needed life-saving open-heart surgery because there was a large hole in her heart.
Addison’s mother Jo Watts told Independent: “It was an unknown and scary time. When they operated on his heart it was the size of a walnut.”
The 43-year-old mother of three said that during the scan she was told that her child had a heart problem, but she could not identify the nature of the problem. It was not until a later specialist fetal cardiology scan Great Ormond Street Hospital He was given the diagnosis in London.
She added, “We have two older daughters who have healthy hearts and had normal pregnancies, so being told at the 20-week scan that there was something wrong with your baby’s heart was very overwhelming and very difficult.”
“We were always given the impression that when he was about six months old and at a better weight, he would need surgery, but unfortunately, that did not happen.”
They said it was a normal birth and she was sent home after spending five days in the hospital. But eight days later, a neonatal nurse visited and found that her oxygen saturation was significantly low – a common side effect of Tetralogy of Fallot, which means less oxygen is carried around the body.
Ms Watts and Addison were taken by children’s acute ambulance service from Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital to Evelina Children’s Hospital in London for emergency surgery, where surgeons “fixed the large hole in his heart”, Ms Watts explained.
Now aged seven, Addison has annual check-ups at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and in her teens she will need valve replacement surgery.
“His heart pumps faster than the average baby because it has to work harder to keep up,” Ms Watts said.
“He loves his football and joined a local team, but he’s at the point where, after a hard, long activity like half an hour’s training, he knows when to stop. So there are limits, but he’s starting to be more aware of it now as he’s getting a bit older.”
Addison, who is a pupil at Cawston Primary School near Norwich, has been named a Young Heart Hero by the BHF in recognition of her fundraising efforts and courage in the face of serious heart disease.
He inspired his school and local bowls club, which his father Graham is a part of, to raise more than £650 for charity. Edison was one of the few children from across Britain to be honored BHF Young Heart Hero AwardsHeld at the Paradox Museum in Knightsbridge, London in September.
Addison said: “I wanted to help other kids like me. It was really exciting to win the Young Heart Hero Award and I had a great day at the museum.”
The awards ceremony meant Addison met other young children with heart problems like him, which was a source of reassurance – something Ms Watts would have appreciated when her son was diagnosed.
“I said in the hospital after her birth that if any other family ever went through what we did, I would be very happy to talk because I think there is a lack of support out there for families with that diagnosis,” she said.
Before BHF existed, most children in the UK with severe heart defects did not survive to their first birthday. Today, thanks to research, more than eight out of 10 children diagnosed survive to adulthood.