Summary:
In the third week after his birth, surgeons performed the open-heart surgery on his "walnut-sized" heart successfully last week. PUNE: In a rare feat, the city doctors successfully performed an open-heart surgery on a premature baby weighing only 1.5kg.The baby was suffering from an extremely critical congenital heart defect, which made the surgery a necessity for the newborn's survival. According to the hospital, this is the first successful open-heart surgery performed on such a small baby in the country.The baby was born premature at 33 weeks at a hospital in Baramati, where doctors noticed low oxygen levels in his blood. Upon investigations, the baby was diagnosed with a serious heart condition where the veins bringing oxygenated blood from the lungs were connected to the liver instead of the heart.The baby was immediately shifted to Ruby Hall Clinic in Pune. The child is recuperating and will be discharged in another two weeks.Consultant paediatric cardiac surgeon Srinivas M Kini , who performed the surgery, said, "His was a case of Infracardiac Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Connection where the veins bringing oxygenated blood from the lungs were connected wrongly to the liver instead of the heart.".