An infant, all of 15 months, was miraculously saved even after his heart stopped beating three times. Hiaan shah, a resident of Ahmedabad, first faced this problem when he was only one and a half-month-old.
Credit for Hiaan’s survival goes to doctors of the Divine Institute of Child Health at Memnagar, Ahmedabad. It is here that Haan was treated by Dr Hardik Patel, a critical care specialist for children and Dr Devang Solanki.
A few months back, Hiaan fell seriously ill and he began having difficulty taking breast milk. Not just this, he would cry frequently, have breathing difficulty and faint. Due to these multiple problems, he was later slipped into a coma. His parents then took him to the Divine Institute of Child Health where he was treated by Dr Patel and his team.
While examining the baby, the doctor found that his heart rate was very high. His heart was beating more than 300 times a minute. This also caused very low blood circulation in the body, which had a very serious effect on the brain. The infant had six episodes of convulsions, his heart was barely working with irregular heartbeats. His blood pressure was so low that it was not recordable. At the same time, his lungs were badly affected. The rate of infection in the child was very high. This led to a severe impact on his liver and kidney.
While explaining the treatment at a news conference, Dr Patel said that Hiaan was provided ventilator support, four types of injections to strengthen the pumping of the heart, three types of medications to stop the convulsions and medications to support vital organs such as the liver and kidneys. Within the first 48 hours of the treatment, the baby’s heart stopped beating three times and restarted after an aggressive heart pumping each time. Although his heartbeats became irregular six times, they were brought back to normal by administering an electric current known as synchronized cardioversion in medical terminology.
“Usually, we observe that infants with such conditions don’t even make it to the hospital alive or die in the middle of the treatment. Even if the child survives the entire tedious treatment, he or she ends up having any mental or physical disability. But nothing like this happened in Haan’s case. Despite taking 15 to 16 types of medicines and various treatments, he is completely normal. Chances of him facing the consequence of the treatment in future seem negligible as he has been put off his treatment for months now and is leading a healthy life already”, said Dr Hardik Patel
Dr Patel explained that on doing further tests on Hiaan he found that his calcium and D3 percentage were lower than the usual limit required in a human body. This point must be given extra focus as it is found in many instances in India due to economical constraints that pregnant women also have low levels of Vitamins, calcium, and haemoglobin are found very low. These deficiencies directly affect the child in her womb and this, later on, leads to such fatal incidents in infants.
According to the medical team, it took almost eighteen days for Hiaan’s health condition to become stable and for the supportive drugs for the organs to be reduced.
During the conference, the infant’s parents Krima Shah and Dipen Shah expressed gratitude to the doctors and the entire hospital team for saving their son’s life despite various hurdles.
