Doctors from two Hà Nội-based hospitals have successfully saved the life of an infant born to a mother suffering a sudden cardiac arrest in surgery that was calculated by the second. Associate Professor Tạ Mạnh Cường, deputy head of the National Heart Institute.— Photo info.net

HÀ NỘI — Doctors from two Hà Nội-based hospitals have successfully saved the life of an infant born to a mother suffering a sudden cardiac arrest in surgery that was calculated by the second.

Associate Professor Tạ Mạnh Cường, deputy head of the National Heart Institute, told the media yesterday that the surgery - the first ever of its kind at the National Heart Institute, took place a week ago with co-operation between doctors from the institute and Bạch Mai Hospital’s obstetrics and paediatric departments.

Dr Cường said the mother was 25-year-old Nguyễn Thị Thiệp from Cao Bằng Province. She was 32-weeks pregnant and suffered from serious congenital heart defects.

She was earlier admitted to Bắc Giang Province’s Lục Ngạn General Hospital and transferred to the National Heart Institute on August 8 with serious pneumonia where she could hardly breathe.

Her situation became quickly worse just hours after being hospitalised with respiratory failure and sudden cardiac arrest.

Doctors from the two hospitals were mobilised to carry out the operation to save the baby’s life right in the emergency room as they did not have enough time to move the patient to surgery, Dr Cường said.

“The infant was taken out of the mother’s uterus in less than a minute but also suffered from cardiac arrest. The heart was able to function again after being treated. If we were a few more seconds late, we would have lost the baby,” he said, adding that unfortunately they were unable to save Thiệp’s life.

The baby’s condition has improved after one week being treated at Bạch Mai Hospital’s Paediatric Department, he said.

According to Thiệp’s family, she was diagnosed in 2007 with congenital heart defects, which doctors at Hà Nội-based Việt Đức Hospital said could not be cured. She was then married and became pregnant without her doctors’ consultation due to a strong desire to have children. — VNS