A team of Georgetown Hospital doctors were successfully able to deliver a healthy baby boy to a 35-year-old mother although she suffers from a life threatening valvular heart disease.
Doctors at the institution diagnosed the woman, Sherrie Persaud, with Mitral Stenosis and Pulmonary Hypertension back in November last year when she was already pregnant.
Pulmonary Hypertension is abnormally high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs thus making the right side of the heart work harder than normal. Mitral Stenosis is a disease of the heart where the mitral valve that separates the upper and lower chambers on the left side of the heart does not open fully, restricting blood flow. The upper heart chamber swells as pressure builds up and if it is too much this can be fatal.
The pregnant woman was told that she would have to undergo a high-risk surgery to correct the problem but since she was pregnant it was advised that she waited. This was because if she had undergone the surgery while pregnant it placed both her and the baby at risk of death.
Doctors then decided to closely monitor her condition and decided on a time when she would undergo a caesarean section surgery. On January 31 the surgery was performed by a team of doctors comprising of Cardiologist Dr Mahendra Carpen, Consultant Gynaecologist Dr Ruth Derkenne and Consultant Anaesthesiologist Dr Vivienne Mitchell-Amata.
“I am counting my blessings and thanking the Almighty One for the team of doctors for me being alive with a healthy baby boy,” Persaud was quoted as saying after the operation was complete.
Persaud would still have to undergo heart surgery to correct the abnormality but for now both she and baby are at home and resting well while they still are monitored by the physicians.
