The unconscious leeway to trade
But the parents Waldemar and Julia fought for their daughter. Treatment at a specialized heart center saved her life.
Wish Fulfillers – Daniel (15) knows that he will soon die
Wish Fulfillers
Daniel (15) knows that he will die soon
The boy meets someone with whom he fulfills his heart’s desires. to the video
Sophia was born on June 4th, 2013 in Aschaffenburg. The little girl with the blonde hair and big blue eyes was an absolute dream. “We were looking forward to seeing her so much,” say Waldemar and Julia. The pregnancy had been quite normal, as with the first daughter Diana. Everything seemed to be fine. But three hours after the normal course of delivery, Sophia turned bluish. Your body wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
Father gets a shock call from the clinic
“After the delivery, I went home, then the doctors called me,” recalls Waldemar. “Are you standing? If so, you’d better sit down,” they said first. In the intensive care unit, the doctors found out by ultrasound why Sophia was not getting enough oxygen. She had several heart and lung abnormalities: only one ventricle was normal, the other very small. There were also holes in the heart wall that separates the two heart chambers. In addition, the connection between heart and lungs in Sophia was not normal and the girl lacks a spleen. “That put me in a deep shock,” says Waldemar. “My wife and I could only cry.”
Single chamber heart is a common heart defect
The term “univentricular heart” stands for a variety of congenital heart defects with one common feature: instead of two main chambers (ventricles), only one or only one sufficiently large and thus functioning heart chamber is created. Constrictions (stenoses) or complete occlusions (atresia) of the large arteries are often associated with these underdevelopments of a heart chamber.
Such serious heart defects are often only detected after birth, as they can only be detected in the womb using prenatal risk ultrasound. If the pregnancy is normal, women usually do not do this. The fetus will thrive normally because it receives oxygen from the placenta. “In the womb, the lungs are not yet properly connected to the bloodstream,” explains Professor Christian Schreiber, Deputy Director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery at the German Heart Center in Munich.
“The ductus arteriosus Botalli, a small connection between the body and pulmonary circulation, ensures that the blood circulation still works in the womb. After the birth, the ductus closes automatically within about two to five days. But in children like Sophia with a functional one With a single-chamber heart, survival after birth depends on the open ductus in order to maintain blood circulation. ” If the duct closes, the newborn is no longer supplied with oxygen. The skin turns blue, there is shortness of breath and ultimately cardiovascular failure.
Difficult decision: operate Sophia or let her die
On the fifth day of her life, Sophia was transferred to the pediatric cardiology department at the Giessen University Hospital. There the baby was placed several stents, small metal vascular supports, using a cardiac catheter to keep the ductus open. There are also drugs with which this can be achieved. Doctors classified Sophia’s heart and lung abnormalities as extremely dramatic. “She needs three operations. Her chance of surviving the first alone was only 50 percent. That is why we should think about taking Sophia home with us and letting her die with loved ones. That’s my nerves passed “, confesses Waldemar. “We felt completely helpless and I would have loved to beat the doctors.”
Sophia’s condition got worse and worse. Every week her parents were with her in the Giessen pediatric cardiology, whose specialists first placed more stents in her little heart and then advised her to have a major operation. “Sophia’s chances of survival of only 50 percent made us bogged down,” recalls Waldemar. “I couldn’t stand it and looked on the Internet for information on how we could better help Sophia.https://123helpme.me/argumentative-essay-topics/ I came across the German Heart Center in Munich and immediately sent Sophia’s findings there.”
Heart Center Munich awakens new hope
One focus of the German Heart Center in Munich is the treatment of congenital heart defects in newborns, infants and children. More than 550 heart operations are performed there on children every year, of which around 200 are performed on newborns and infants. “The Munich doctors contacted us. They estimated Sophia’s chances of survival at 90 to 95 percent. Finally there was more hope that our little mouse would survive,” says Waldemar.
Professor Schreiber explains this immense deviation from the first survival prognosis through the extensive experience that specialized centers have with such complex heart defects: “This means that the mortality rate at centers like ours is well below the risk that such operations in clinics that are not so specialized. At our clinic, not 50 but only five to ten percent of children with a functional single-chamber heart die. In Europe there are only a few clinics that achieve such a low rate. ” So Sophia was flown to Munich by helicopter on July 24th.
Heart surgery at great risk
Sophia’s condition was very critical, but the specialists at the German Heart Center in Munich decided to operate on the baby immediately. On July 27, a large team led by Professor Schreiber tackled the high-risk operation.
“Sophia’s heart was stopped at the heart-lung machine. In a normal heart, the pulmonary vein, which carries oxygen-rich blood with it, flows into the left atrium of the heart chamber. From there it is pumped into the whole body. But with Sophia this led Vein to the large vena cava that opens into the right ventricle. Fresh and used blood mix. Since the stents couldn’t change anything, we removed them. Instead, we sewed in a shunt, a Goretex tube, that connects the main artery of the heart with the The shunt serves as a duct replacement, so to speak, and ensures that sufficient blood flows into the artery and supplies the lungs with the oxygen-poor blood. We also widened the pulmonary arteries with a small Goretex patch and connected the pulmonary veins, as from the heart specialist explains the complicated first operation.
Parents not left alone with their fear
“We went crazy with fear and insecurity,” says Waldemar. “For the first few days after the operation, our baby was still on the heart-lung machine, was fed through a gastric tube and we could do nothing but wait for Sophia to recover.”
The parents’ nerves are on edge in such situations. This state of emergency is taken into account in special clinics such as the Munich Heart Center through special care concepts. “It is very important to keep in close contact with the parents and explain each step in the treatment to them,” says Schreiber. “As doctors struggling to keep children alive, we unfortunately don’t have the time for much more. That is why we have psychologically trained nurses, known as contact nurses, who are contact persons for families 24 hours a day. They take them Even hugging relatives, donating love, strength and confidence. ” In addition, the parents find a temporary home in the Ronald McDonald House attached to the Heart Center for the many weeks that their child has to be looked after in the hospital.
“The contact nurses also took care of our five-year-old daughter Diana, who was greatly changed. She always asked where her little sister suddenly was. I don’t think we would have gotten through the situation without the support from the contact nurses our faith has helped us. Every day we went to church and prayed that God would spare our daughter and all the other little patients in the heart center. I have great respect for all these children who have such a difficult start in life “, tells the father.
Only a scar reminds of Sophia’s struggle for survival
Two weeks after the first operation, Sophia had recovered well from the exertion. “She was transferred to the normal ward and began to smile again,” reports Waldemar happily. Her serious heart defect required another operation in September, but it was no longer associated with a high risk. “We removed the shunt because Sophia’s pulmonary artery was now large enough. In addition, we created a connection between the superior vena cava and the pulmonary arteries – that was the next step in correcting Sophia’s heart defect,” says Professor Schreiber, explaining the second procedure.
Shortly afterwards, the parents were finally allowed to take Sophia home with them. “We are infinitely grateful to the doctors and nurses for saving our daughter. We have to have a cardiological check-up with Sophia every two to three weeks, but she is developing well. She is a perfectly normal baby. Except for the scar on her chest there is nothing to suggest that Sophia almost died. ”
Special surgery for congenital heart defects
The treatment of such complex congenital heart defects as with Sophia always follows a three-stage concept. This is why the little girl has another operation ahead of her if she weighs at least ten kilograms at one and a half to two years. “Arterial and venous blood are still mixing in Sophia’s only heart chamber. We will fix that with the so-called Fontan operation, in which we separate the pulmonary and body circulation. After that, the heart chamber only pumps oxygen-rich blood into the main artery. The pulmonary artery is separated from this ventricle and instead connected to the atrium, i.e. where the used blood from the body arrives, “says Schreiber. The Fontan operation has been used for a number of heart defects since 1974, from which almost all patients previously died.
Sophia will have a life worth living
“After the Fontan operation, Sophia’s heart defect will finally be completely corrected. Sophia will then be able to live well with her one heart chamber. She will be able to play light sports, work and have children,” said Professor Schreiber, assessing Sophia’s prognosis. Even the lack of a spleen causes Sophia few problems. Since the organ is important for the immune system and filters, among other things, bacteria, viruses and parasites from the bloodstream, Sophia receives the antibiotic penicillin every day as a precaution until her immune system is fully developed. “We thank God and the Munich doctors anew every day that everything went well and that Sophia will be with us for a long time,” says Waldemar. “But it was a difficult time for the whole family, which we now want to work through with psychologists. We actually want a third child. But the fear is still too great that it might not be born healthy.”
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Great choice and convenience allow us to access it more often. (Photo: Imago) It’s always the same: Although we try to eat healthy and low in calories, we are constantly falling into the temptation of chips, chocolate and greasy snacks. Unfortunately, our eating behavior is hardly consciously controlled, but rather determined by numerous internal and above all external influences. The US researcher Brian Wansink describes what these are in his book Eating without meaning or understanding (Campus Verlag 2008). Read here what seduces us to snack and how we can still resist the temptation. Calorie Test Do you know the biggest fatteners?
Why Diets Fail
What and how much we eat cannot be controlled with our head alone, as thousands of people have experienced in countless diet attempts. For several years now, scientists have been studying what actually controls our eating behavior. According to Brian Wansink, we make more than 200 food-related decisions every day: Breakfast: yes or no? Cornflakes or croissants? Small or large portion? Very few decisions are made consciously. Even if we hold back the chocolate for a few hours or days – at some point we will become weak again. And the more we fail ourselves, the more the body demands it. In addition, the metabolism switches to the back burner when food intake is restricted, so that weight loss becomes more and more difficult. Losing weight therefore only works if the body receives enough energy so that it does not switch to economy mode. For most people, this is at least 1200 to 1500 kilocalories.
What seduces us to snack
But not only our own body, but above all external influences determine our eating behavior. We are seduced by smells, colors and a large selection of foods and dishes to eat and snack on. Who doesn’t know the buffet effect? The larger the selection, the more often we reach. The portion size also has an impact on how much we eat. Scientists at the University of Illinois discovered that most people try to empty their plate even if it is repeatedly refilled through a tube in the bottom of the plate without being noticed. By the way, fast food chains and food manufacturers are taking advantage of this effect by offering more and more XXL menus and king-size portions.
The unconscious scope for action
So are we helplessly at the mercy of our appetite? No, says Brian Wansink, because there is an unconscious leeway in which we can act. In this way, you can get a grip on stubborn snacking habits if you first reduce the amount consumed and limit the opportunities for unbridled eating behavior. For example, it can help to stop buying bulk packs and to keep as few stocks as possible. The available supplies should be packed as far away as possible so as not to access them at every opportunity.
