Boy, 3, with rare heart condition thrives after op

A boy who had open-heart surgery at just seven months old is now a regular three-year-old who likes to play tennis and do puzzles, his parents have said.

Alaric, who lives in Hethersett, Norfolk, was diagnosed with potential heart issues during a 12-week in-utero scan in 2023.

Further tests at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) revealed he had ventricular septal defect (VSD) – a hole in the heart's wall separating its lower chambers – and mesocardia, where his heart is positioned in the centre of his chest instead of towards the left of his body.

His parents, Dominic and Amara, said "for the most part, he's able to lead a normal life", thanks to the surgery.

Alaric's parents were told that as a baby, his heart could cope, but as he moved into toddlerhood and childhood, any physical exertion would become more difficult.

"Because of his heart defects being so complex, at some point, he would have gone into heart failure," his mother said.

He underwent surgery with his parents knowing he might not survive the operation.

Alaric was in theatre for seven hours to correct the VSD, a narrow pulmonary artery, a thickened right ventricle wall and a leak in his right valve.

His father said: "It didn't really hit home to me until I saw him in the little scrubs".

Amara added: "There were complications. They said to us he had to be put back on bypass and stabilised a couple of times."

The family remained at the hospital for 16 days while he recovered.

Dr Florian Moenkemeyer, consultant paediatric cardiologist at GOSH, said, during scans prior to Alaric's birth, doctors were not even sure whether his condition was correctable by surgery.

Surgeons also had to enlarge the artery towards the lung to increase blood flow.

"And that is basically correcting the whole circulation so that it is similar to yours or my heart, with some abnormalities," said Moenkemeyer.

According to the British Heart Foundation, 3,500 children under 16 undergo heart surgery annually in the UK and Ireland, with one in 100 babies having some kind of heart defect.

However, mesocardia is extremely rare and accounts for only 20 congenital anomalies out of 10,000.

Moenkemeyer said GOSH performed surgery on only about five patients a year with Alaric's more complicated condition.

Alaric's heart will stay in the middle of his chest for the rest of his life.

Last year he had further surgery to fix a hole in his abdominal wall.

His mother said: "He can do pretty much anything any other little three-year-old can do. He's super-bright. He does maths. He loves number blocks. He loves puzzles.

"He gets a little bit more tired than I think the average three-year-old would."

Alaric's father said: "So, once he gets to late adolescence, he'll need to have some more testing, or put him on a treadmill and do some physical activity to see if he needs a stent."

The couple have been doing several sponsored events to help raise money for GOSH and said they were "forever indebted" to the team there.

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