Kaylin Baker’s heart, no larger than a quarter, was soon to fail.
Born two months premature, and weighing just 2 pounds, 8 ounces, Kaylin had two defects in her aorta, the body’s largest artery, which carries blood from the heart to the body.
Two narrowings, one in a valve leading from the heart to the aorta and the other farther down the line, were forcing the heart to work overtime to deliver blood throughout her tiny body. Without surgery, her doctors said, the heart soon would pump itself to death.
Then, said first-time parents Nancy and Chris Baker of Austin, a miracle happened.
Instead of cutting her chest open — a difficult procedure from which Kaylin might never recover — physicians at Houston’s Texas Children’s Hospital devised a daring, almost certainly never-before-tried procedure in a baby so small.
They would snake a tube, or catheter, through her neck and down an artery the size of a spaghetti noodle into her heart. From there, the doctors said, they could fix Kaylin’s heart and narrowed aorta with a tiny balloon and a small, cylindrical cage, or stent.
Their plan worked. After Wednesday’s four-hour procedure, Kaylin’s tiny heart showed promising signs of recovery Thursday.