Doctors inserted a needle through the mother’s abdomen into the baby’s heart. The closed valve was opened with the help of a balloon catheter. – photo is symbolic

Doctors at Delhi AIIMS successfully performed a heart surgery of a grape-sized baby in the mother’s womb. Doctors performed balloon dilation surgery to open the closed valve of the child’s heart. The doctors completed this surgery in just 90 seconds. Both mother and child are safe.

The operation was performed at the Cardiothoracic Science Center of AIIMS. The team of doctors from AIIMS completed this procedure. Now the team is monitoring the growth of the child’s heart chambers.

The last three pregnancies of the woman were not successful, the child had a heart problem in the womb.
A 28-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital. The woman had lost three previous pregnancies. The doctors told the woman about the child’s heart condition and advised an operation to rectify it, which the woman and her husband agreed to.

The team reported that some serious forms of heart disease can be detected even when the baby is in the mother’s womb. If these are corrected in the womb itself, then the chances of a better health of the child after birth and normal development of the child increases.

The surgery was performed by a team from AIIMS’s Department of Cardiology and Cardiac Anesthesia and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Fetal Medicine).

Balloon dilation: improved blood flow with a needle
The doctor who performed the surgery told that the name of the surgery done on the child is Balloon Dilation. This procedure is done under ultrasound guidance. For this we inserted a needle from the mother’s belly into the child’s heart. Then with the help of a balloon catheter, we opened the closed valve to allow better blood flow. We expect that the baby’s heart will develop better after the surgery and the risk of heart diseases at birth will be lower.

If the operation took more time, the child was in danger
The senior doctor of the team of Cardiothoracic Sciences Center said that such an operation can be dangerous for the life of the unborn child, so it has to be performed very carefully. Mostly when we do such procedures, they are under angioplasty, but this could not be done under angioplasty.

This entire procedure is done under ultrasound guidance and has to be done very quickly, as the heart chamber is punctured. If there is any mistake in this or if it takes more time, then the life of the child can also be lost. Hence performed very quickly and with accurate estimation. We completed this procedure in 90 seconds.