Baby Hayden saved by heart surgeons and home for Easter
Baby Hayden Traynor was born critically ill just five weeks ago, with his parents Laura Moorby and Graham Traynor told to say their goodbyes. But thanks to a team of specialist medics, the ‘little miracle’ is home for Easter.
NSW
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Just five weeks ago Hayden Traynor’s parents were told to say goodbye to their critically ill newborn son.
Born with a rare congenital heart disease, doctors thought they may not be able to save him.
But today, after a dramatic highway dash during which his blood was repeatedly pumped from his body and infused with oxygen, followed by open-heart surgery, Hayden is home with his parents Laura Moorby and Graham Traynor in Boorowa, near Young, and expected to live to a normal life.
Hayden’s life-and-death battle began when he was born at Canberra hospital on March 12.
Ms Moorby, 34, said: “When they cut the umbilical cord he just crashed and they pushed the alarm and called a code blue. It got serious very quickly and they took him away, I was terrified.”
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As doctors tried to diagnose what was wrong, Hayden was put on life support. But time was running out.
“When I was wheeled down to him they asked us to say goodbye,” Ms Moorby said.
“I called mum in Boorowa, which is an hour and a half away, and they said, ‘She might not arrive in time’.”
An urgent call was made to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and it was determined Hayden would need to be transferred for specialist surgery if he was to survive.
But that in itself was going to be difficult.
Hayden would need to be hooked up to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine — or ECMO — in order to survive the trip to Sydney.
Transporting a newborn baby on ECMO, which pumps blood from the body, oxygenates it and then returns it to the heart, had never been done before and although travelling by road would be longer, it was considered safer than air.
The newborn and paediatric emergency transport service team of surgeons and intensive care specialists was immediately dispatched from Sydney by helicopter.
At the same time, the neonatal intensive care unit in Canberra was turned into an operating theatre for paediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Matthew Liava’a to perform the delicate surgery of hooking up the ECMO machine to the baby’s carotid artery and jugular vein.
“The ECMO takes over the work of the lungs and heart and his oxygen levels went from 50 per cent to 100 per cent,” said Dr Liava’a, whose own son was born with a congenital heart condition requiring open heart surgery two years ago.
Mr Traynor, 37, said: “It’s not something you would wish on anyone, but the doctors sat us down and said this is happening and we went from despair to hope.”
At Westmead, a scan showed Hayden had a heart condition called total anomalous pulmonary venous return, a rare condition in which the four pulmonary veins fail to properly connect to the left atrium.
Three days after he was born, Dr Yishay Orr performed open-heart surgery on Hayden to correct the vessels.
“It involved opening up the chest, using a heart-lung machine and lowering the body temperature to 18 degrees to lower the blood flow so we can see the vessels and then reconnect them. The heart is the size of a mandarin, but he did very well,” Dr Liava’a said.
Hayden was in intensive care for just over two weeks as his parents waited to give him his first cuddle.
“I balled my eyes out when they said I could have a cuddle but I didn’t’ want him to pick up on my tears, so I had to prepare myself,” Ms Moorby said.
Now five weeks old, Hayden is home and healthy for Easter.
“He’s really good, he is smiling and alert and breast feeding and his big brother Hunter adores him,” Ms Moorby said. “He’s just beautiful. You look at him now and you can’t even tell there was anything wrong with him.”
Mr Traynor said: “They saved his life within a matter of hours after being told he wouldn’t make it. And it was all free.
“I used to be sceptical about paying taxes but to see what they do and it’s all free, I have no problems now.”
Dr Liava’a said Hayden had a good chance of living a perfectly normal life from now on.
“Only a small percentage of children with the condition develop obstruction where the repairs were done, but I would expect him never to need further surgery,” he said.
Ms Moorby said: “We are so lucky, we can’t believe how lucky we are. I’m so thankful, he’s defied all odds and even the staff, when we were leaving, were calling him the miracle baby.”
Originally published as Baby Hayden saved by heart surgeons and home for Easter
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