{"id":242285,"date":"2021-03-28T09:12:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T14:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=242285"},"modified":"2021-03-26T18:15:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T23:15:33","slug":"premature-heart-defect-saved-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/premature-heart-defect-saved-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors save preemie with heart defect using groundbreaking new surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A premature baby weighing barely two pounds at birth has overcome not only the challenges that come with prematurity but a life-threatening heart defect as well, thanks to pioneering doctors at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles willing to try a groundbreaking new surgical intervention.<\/p>\n

Alejandra Romero went into labor early and delivered her son Alex at just 26 weeks. He weighed only two pounds and one ounce, and his premature delivery was a major shock. Romero\u00a0told PEOPLE<\/a> that just two weeks before Alex was born, her ultrasounds had come back completely normal. But then, on October 26, she suffered a premature rupture of her amniotic sac, and was forced to undergo a C-section.<\/p>\n

“It was very difficult. I didn’t get to hold him for a while,” she told PEOPLE. “When you’re pregnant, you think you’re gonna have a healthy pregnancy and take the baby home, but in my case, it was different.”<\/p>\n

Premature babies often are at high-risk for a number of health conditions, but doctors saw some warning signs that Alex might have a heart defect as well.<\/p>\n

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