This Miracle Baby Received a Heart Transplant in the Middle of a Pandemic
Alexandra Lovo Lopez is a 9-month-old from Queens with a heartwarming story. In her first few months of life, she’s become one of two pediatric patients to receive heart transplants since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
She was admitted to Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital on March 19—a time when pediatric doctors and cardiologists were being assigned to adults with COVID-19—at just 4 months old due severe heart failure. She was later diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a rare condition that affects infants and children and causes weakness of the heart muscle, making it difficult to pump blood properly.
“Her care was extremely complex and she was very sick when she arrived more than four months ago. Even in the best of times, heart transplants for babies are challenging, but the pandemic added a series of hurdles,” Robert Pass, MD, chief of pediatric cardiology, Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital, said in a press release. “We were mindful to balance the needs of adult patients who were seriously ill with the needs of Alexandra, who required complex critical and cardiac care.”
On March 25 doctors implanted the Berlin heart, a device that gave mechanical support to Alecxandra’s heart while they searched for a donor heart. Even after the transplant, however, Alexandra remained at high risk and immuno-compromised due to her medications.
A few months later, when the staff finally found a donor heart, it was ABO compatible, meaning it had a different blood type. “She would require several transfusions of new blood to facilitate a whole-blood exchange,” Lauren Glass, MD, medical director of pediatric heart transplant, Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital said in the release. “Our blood bank staff worked around the clock to ensure an adequate supply.”
Alexandra’s heart transplant took place on Thursday, July 9, approximately four months after her admission to Mount Sinai’s Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (PCICU). Her doctor’s say she’s recovering very well and has since gone home to be with her family.
“We were quite pleased. Her new heart started working well right away. In the days following her surgery, as we realized the transplant had been a success, it was like a ray of sunshine on all of us,” Raghav Murthy, MD, surgical director of pediatric heart transplant at the hospital and who led the surgery, stated.
“Alexandra is our miracle baby,” Dr. Aydin also said in the release. “It was our privilege to see this transplant through in spite of so many hurdles and so many months of waiting.”
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