A young girl has waited for over 200 days to receive a new heart after being diagnosed with a rare and life-threatening heart disease. Elodie Baker, who is still under the age, underwent a successful transplant on March 27th after a long 100-day stay at a Chicago hospital. In August, she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition that is difficult to detect but often fatal. Doctors almost missed her condition when her mother brought her in for a health check-up, but now, with the transplant surgery, she is expected to live a healthy life in the future.
Elodie Baker (pictured) requests a heart transplant after discovering she has dilated cardiomyopathy.
Baker's parents (pictured) brought her to the hospital after she cried while her mother was taking care of her, and she faced difficulties with feeding.
Katie, Elodie's mother, spoke with Good Morning America in an interview this week, saying, "Our pregnancy was normal, and we had a straightforward delivery and actually came home with Elodie. Baker knew something was not right with her daughter when she had difficulty breastfeeding and started crying during feeding. "She was home with us in Minnesota for seven weeks and one night, she wouldn't eat. I was nursing her, and she would scream and my heart would clench. I said to [my husband] Collin, 'Something's not right. We need to get her in,'" she explained. There were no standout signs, and the doctors initially told Baker they weren't sure what was going on with her daughter. Right before Baker was about to go home, the doctors suggested doing a chest X-ray, which turned out to be a life-saving decision. "I think they were considering the possibility of sending us home, but they said, 'Let's do an X-ray just to be sure,'" Baker said. They did the X-ray, and they saw her heart was enlarged, and that was on August 21. And we haven't been home since."
After the diagnosis, Elodie Baker (pictured) was transferred from Minnesota to Chicago for treatment. She was put on a ventilator and feeding tube, and a device was used to assist her heart in pumping blood.
On March 27th, Elodie (center) underwent a successful heart transplant after more than 200 days since her diagnosis and 100 days in the hospital.
Doctors treating Elodie's case faced difficulties in determining the cause of her condition, which involved the enlargement of the heart chambers and difficulty in pumping blood. Baker would eventually be transferred from her home in Minnesota to a hospital in Chicago, Illinois, where she would receive care. In Elodie's case, genetic testing did not reveal the answers as to why she developed this type of heart disease, and in that situation, it was referred to as idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, meaning that at this point, we truly don't know why this happened to her, said Dr. Anna Joong, who cared for Elodie for several months at Lurie Children's in Chicago, as told to GMA. Doctors quickly determined that she would need a heart transplant, which could be challenging for a young child because the typical organs of adults available may not fit their chest. During the waiting period, doctors implanted a ventricular assist device (VAD) into Elodie as a temporary artificial heart to support her while awaiting transplantation. The infant also required feeding tubes and a breathing tube, as those were still a challenge for her during treatment.
Caption: Elodie Baker undergoing treatment at Lurie Hospital in Chicago. Her heart was so weak that IV medication wasn't enough, and she required a ventricular assist device (VAD), said Dr. Joong. "We used this device as a bridge to transplantation, so it's a way to support her heart and make her stronger during the waiting time for a donor heart." However, eventually, a suitable heart became available, and the surgery was successfully completed last month. Doctors told GMA that although she currently still uses feeding tubes, she has been weaned off the breathing tube and has undergone physical and speech therapy to help her catch up with developmental milestones for her age. "She has been transferred out of the ICU and is sitting up," explained Joong. "She's a resilient child, and we are very grateful to the donor family." In 2010, researchers found that this condition causes approximately 403,000 deaths worldwide each year, and the numbers are trending upwards.
