Mother's Heart Stopped During Open Heart Surgery

 While Unborn Baby's Heart Kept Beating

Rare Heart Surgery Saves Life of Mother and Child

Ludhiana, 19th September, 2011:(Shalu Arora) Mrs Gurpreet Kaur – a 25 y lady - w/o Mr Manmeet Singh r/o Kidwai Nagar Ludhiana was in a dire condition. The whole family had been overjoyed when Gurpreet had got pregnant . Then at the 28^th week of pregnancy she started getting extremely short of breath. On examination it was found that one of her valves (the mitral valve) had got very tight. She was referred to Dr Harinder Singh Bedi – Head of Cardio Vascular & Thoracic Surgery at the Christian Medical College & Hospital , Ludhiana. Dr Bedi realized that due to the pregnancy Gurpreet’s blood volume had increased and so the valve which was already too small due to the disease was now functionally smaller as more blood had to pass through it. The blood was getting trapped in the lungs and so she was unable to breathe . Dr Bedi explained that this is like pulmonary edema where a patient basically drowns in her own blood . An intervention  procedure had been tried at another hospital but had failed . On admission to the CMC her condition was quite critical. She was also seen by the Head of Obstetrics Dr K Awasthi and Dr A Kellogg and a joint decision taken to perform an open heart surgery to save the mother and to let the baby continue growth in the womb. Dr Bedi told that any open heart surgery in a pregnant mother carries a high risk of miscarriage – but the surgery was essential to save the mother. With utmost care and continuous monitoring of the baby with special equipment - the delicate open heart surgery was done on 6^th July 2011 . At surgery the mother’s heart was stopped – but the baby’s heart was allowed to beat normally and was monitored by a fetal monitor. Dr Bedi said that it was quite an eerie and spiritual moment to see the flat ECG of the mother and the normal beat of the baby . Anesthesia for this delicate case was given by Cardiac Anesthetist Dr Arun Gupta  . The heart lung machine was managed by Mr Jairus and Mr William who are among the senior most experts in this field . The other members of the team are Dr Allen, Dr Viju Abraham, Dr Paul, Dr Neharika, Dr Susan, Dr Miria and Dr Arjin  .

Gurpreet then recovered well and delivered a healthy baby boy on 9^th Sep 2011 in the CMC by Dr Tapsaya Dhar Maseeh  who said that both mother and child are in the pink of health. Dr Bedi said that such cases are relatively rare . The first priority is to save the mother and also aim to have a normal baby. The whole CMC team was very happy that both mother and baby were well. Dr Abraham G Thomas – Director of CMC & H – told that a multi speciality care was essential for the appropriate management of such complex cases.