“Frozen Baby” Chilled For Four Days to Fix Heart

June 19th, 2010 - 2:36 am ICT by Angela Kaye Mason  

June 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A baby boy in Britain was “put on ice” for four days in order to save his life after he suffered heart surgery complications, which caused his little heart to beat in excess of 200 times a minute. The doctors quickly decided their best course of action would be to chill the tiny boy’s body, in order to slow down his heart.

When little Finley Burton was just 16 weeks old, he had to undergo surgery to repair a hole in his heart, and a narrowed aorta. Much to the fear of his parents and doctors, he developed a rapid heart beat after the surgery which could have easily killed him, since his tiny heart was beating over twice as fast as it should have.

Acting as quickly as possible in order to save the baby’s life, doctors at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle decided to place the baby on ice, so to speak, by placing him in a special blanket that was filled with chilled air. As the body temperature lowers, so does the heart rate. The baby was chilled down from 97 degrees F to about 92 degrees.

The treatment was given a month ago, and since then little Finley is said to be recovering superbly. The baby and his family are from County Durham, northern England.

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