Heart implant the size of a pea saved our baby’s life
‘Our sick boy returned healthy and relaxed’
WITH his cheeky smile and big, bright eyes, Teddy Palmer looks as happy and healthy as his twin brother Dillon.
But when the boys were delivered ten weeks prematurely, tiny Teddy was born with a life-threatening heart defect that left him struggling to breathe.
Now, the 17-month-old is thriving – and it’s thanks to a heart implant that has been approved in the UK for the first time.
Teddy is one of the first British babies to receive the Piccolo Occluder – an expanding mesh device barely the size of a pea – that plugs deadly holes in the hearts of premature babies who are so small that surgery is not always possible.
The device is inserted via a vein in the leg and pushed up into the heart in a 20-minute procedure, avoiding the need for a risky operation.
This week it received a CE Mark, so it can now be routinely used across Europe. Crucially, the mesh is small enough to be implanted in premature babies weighing as little as 1.5lb.
Until now, babies like Teddy would have been hooked up to ventilators in intensive care until they grew big enough for surgery, with many dying before they reach this stage.
Last night the Palmers described the device’s ‘transformational’ impact. ‘It was just incredible,’ said Teddy’s mother Aimee, 34, a nursery school worker from Guildford.
‘We sent off this sick baby, whose need for oxygen and breathing support was increasing daily. When he returned, he just didn’t need the oxygen – it was transformational. He was healthy, relaxed and rested.’
When the twins were born on March 31 last year, Teddy weighed just 2lb 2oz and Dillon was 3lb 6oz.
Tests revealed Teddy had ‘patent ductus arteriosus’ – a lifethreatening congenital heart defect causing a leak between two blood vessels from a ‘duct’, or opening in the heart.
All babies have this duct while they are in the womb as it allows blood to bypass the lungs and get oxygenated blood directly from the mother. In healthy babies, it closes a few days after delivery so that oxygen-rich blood from the lungs can be pumped around the body.
But in some premature newborns – around 600 a year in the UK – the duct does not close, meaning the oxygenated blood mixes with de-oxygenated blood, causing breathing and bowel problems, developmental delays and brain damage.
For Teddy, it meant he struggled to breathe, and while Dillon went from strength to strength, he could not put on weight.
Finally, at six weeks old in May last year, he received the Piccolo at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He was granted permission on compassionate grounds to have the device before it was formally authorised because of the severity of his condition.
The mesh works by causing the blood to clot, before tissue grows around it and seals the leak for life.
The implant – made by US firm Abbott – was approved in America in January but will now be used in private and NHS hospitals in the UK. Mrs Palmer and husband Toby, 32, who works for an examining board, have since watched both their boys grow into healthy toddlers.
‘Teddy is still smaller than his brother, but growing on track, loves food and so long as he is healthy... we just watch and wait. He is so resilient and such a fighter,’ Mrs Palmer said.
Professor Alain Fraisse, director of paediatric cardiology at the Royal Brompton – the only UK hospital to have used the device until now – said: ‘Seeing these extremely premature babies fight for their lives is harrowing, and finally having solutions that can offer a dependable treatment option and an alternative to surgery ... is a huge advance in our field.’