Baby girl whose parents were told was 'perfectly healthy' needed open-heart surgery
A 'perfectly healthy' County Durham baby was rushed to hospital for open-heart surgery due to a congenital heart defect that was not detected on ultrasounds.
Baby Arabella was just 12-days-old when she was taken to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital after her parents, Lauren Robinson and Nathan Bridger, noticed a blue tint to her skin.
Lauren, of Willington, told The Northern Echo: "The blue tint developed after a few days. Her hands and feet were always a sort of purple colour too.
"After she was born, doctors described Bella as 'perfectly healthy'. We'd seen a few midwives, and I had mentioned about Bella's colour, and they said it was quite normal for newborns.
"But when Bella was 12-days-old, we had a health visitor come out. She said, to put our minds at ease, she would like us to see the GP. He took her SATs and they weren't reading good and we were sent to Durham Hospital.
"She declined extremely quickly. By the time we got to Durham, Bella's oxygen was that low, that they were very worried and put her on medication".
Lauren and Nathan said they were told if the medication worked and raised Arabella's oxygen levels, something was wrong. And it did exactly that, and Arabella was blue-lighted to the Freeman Hospital.
Arabella at home the week before the surgery (Image: LAUREN ROBINSON) Lauren, who is a sales team leader and Nathan, a landscape gardener, were told Arabella had Tetralogy of Fallot, a group of four structural abnormalities within the heart that occur together.
After receiving the news their baby had a congenital heart condition, Lauren said she was "horrified".
"We felt guilty, because they explained that Bella had been struggling for those 12 days at home. It was traumatic. Going from what we thought was a perfectly healthy baby to essentially being told if we had left it a couple more hours Bella wouldn't have made it was horrifying", she said.
Lauren continued: "Her heart had essentially struggled for nearly two weeks to the point that her pulmonary artery had completely closed by the time we got to the Freeman. That was on Wednesday, March 12 when we were brought in. We were kept in over the weekend, she was kept stable in ICU, then on the Monday she was fitted with a stent.
"We were released on the Friday with a specialist formula to take home as she needed to put weight on for the surgery. So, we knew then she was going to need open-heart surgery, but ideally that's done between six and 11-months-old".
But on May 28, baby Arabella was rushed back to the Freeman Hospital as her oxygen saturation levels had dropped dramatically and the family were told she would have to have surgery sooner.
She underwent the operation on Monday, June 2 and is thankfully recovering well.
Arabella after the surgery (Image: LAUREN ROBINSON)
However, little Arabella's family have been told she will need surgery again in the future, as surgeons could not save her pulmonary artery.
"They did all of the other fixes because Tetralogy of Fallot is actually four defects in one. They fixed the other three defects, but they had to cut her pulmonary artery out", Lauren said.
Arabella's parents praised the surgeon who operated on their baby saying she saved her life.
She said: "The surgeon, Louise Kenny, she is absolutely fantastic.We can't thank Freeman enough, because without them and without Louise Kenny, Bella wouldn't be here."
Lauren and Nathan are currently staying in onsite accommodation at Freeman Hospital. A GoFundMe has been set up to help them with paying the bills and the costs of looking after Lauren's other two children, 13-year-old twins Lewis and Imogen.
Lauren said: "The GoFundMe alleviates some of the pressure as Nathan is not working and I am on statuary maternity pay, so not a lot of money is coming in. We can't thank everyone enough who has donated".
You can donate to the fundraiser by clicking here.
Lauren and Nathan with baby Arabella (Image: LAUREN ROBINSON)
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