- Condition discovered during a twelve-week scan when the heart was the size of a grain of rice
- Despite being born with life-threatening heart problems, she finally took her first steps at 17 months
It’s no surprise that blossoming toddler Emi King is raising everyone’s spirits – because surgeons inserted a balloon into her heart to save her life when she was two hours old.
In fact, Emi – who is now 17 months old – is the youngest patient in Britain to have the procedure.
Despite being born with life-threatening heart problems, she has finally taken her first steps – much to the delight of mother Louise King, 30, and her husband Oliver, 38.
Her parents, who live in Rochester, Kent, with Emi and Aria, three, and Sophia, seven, said: ‘She climbs everywhere, and her sisters love her. They tell her the scar on her chest is her bravery scar!’
Emi’s condition was discovered during a 12-week scan, when her heart was the size of a grain of rice.
The opening between her two upper chambers was far too small to allow blood flow – a condition so serious that doctors said it meant she would not survive
Despite being born with life-threatening heart problems, she has finally taken her first steps – much to the delight of mother Louise King, 30, and her husband Oliver, 38
The opening between her two upper chambers was far too small to allow blood flow – a condition so serious that doctors said it meant she would not survive.
Further tests later in the pregnancy revealed that she was suffering from another condition, transposition of the great arteries, where the two main blood vessels of the heart are in the wrong direction.
Due to the severity of the first condition, the couple was offered a dismissal, but they refused.
They were told there was only one slim chance to save Emi: by temporarily placing a balloon in her heart to widen the narrow opening.
Surgeons operated just two hours after Emi was born at St Thomas’ Hospital in London in August 2022.
Mrs King, who started working at children’s charity Tiny Tickers after Emi recovered, said: ‘The hole was so small that doctors feared she would not survive the time it took to have a natural birth, so Emi had to be born by caesarean section.’
Emi underwent open heart surgery when she was six days old to change her blood vessels.
Despite being on a ventilator for five days due to a collapsed lung, Emi survived – and is now going from strength to strength.
Dr. Joyce Lim, a consultant cardiologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, said the operation was ‘a big challenge’, adding: ‘It couldn’t be done faster than two hours old.’