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| The Blue Baby Miracle |
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by Stacey Smart, Marketing Coordinator
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On November 29, 1944 a tiny, fragile baby was wheeled into an operating room at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Her lips and nose were blue. So were her fingers and toes. At fifteen moths of age, she weighed just nine pounds. Her surgeon, Dr. Alfred Blalock, was about to perform an operation that had never been tried before, on a part of the body that up until that time had been considered 'taboo'. Eileen Saxon was a “blue baby.” She was born with a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. This condition prevents adequate amounts of blood from being pumped through the lungs to receive oxygen. Therefore, her skin had a bluish tint known as cyanosis.
Cardiac surgery is an extremely specialized field performed with such a high degree of sophistication, that it is difficult to imagine it has only been a little more than a half century since the heart was first operated on. Thousands of blue babies were born every year during Eileen's time period. In addition to their unnatural skin coloring, blue babies often suffered from fatigue, weakness, faintness and experienced little or no weight gain. Some children became so ill they could not walk. There was virtually no hope that they would survive to adulthood.
Up until that day in 1944, the heart was regarded as off limits in surgery, seen as a critical part of the body that was too delicate to interfere with. But Dr. Helen Taussig, the first woman pediatric cardiologist, had a bold idea. What if they connected an artery leading to the arm that sent blood out into the body to an artery that brought blood into the lungs? Doing this would add significantly more oxygen to the blood and hopefully turn blue babies into healthy pink ones.
Vivien Thomas stood behind Dr. Blalock to guide him through the surgery. Thomas was a surgical technician as well as Dr. Blalock's assistant. A small incision was made in the infant's chest. Then a branch of the aorta was cut and attached to the pulmonary artery, redirecting blood flow to the lungs for fresh oxygen. The operation had immediate impact as Eileen's lips turned pink as soon as it was finished. It was a success! In the days to follow, Eileen's body became even less blue.
The operation became known as the Blalock-Taussig shunt.
After several more operations, word of the 'blue baby miracle' spread quickly. Soon parents from all over the world were bringing their blue babies to Johns Hopkins to be operated on. One mother commented after the surgery that her baby “…looked like a little rosebud.” Surgeons from all over the world also came to Johns Hopkins to learn the procedure.
None of this could have been possible without “Anna.” To practice the operation, Dr. Blalock and Vivien Thomas duplicated blue baby syndrome in dogs. In 1943, they perfected the procedure on Anna. She was a scruffy, little dog with a golden-brown coat and big brown eyes. She became famous for her contribution to science as she had many visitors and was featured with former “blue babies” in popular magazines and newspapers. She was even awarded a medal by the Baltimore Animal Aid Association in 1951. Although Anna retired at age 7, she continued to make the laboratory her home until her death at age 15. A portrait of Anna was put on display at Johns Hopkins to honor the selfless dog that helped change the lives of many sick children.
The Blalock-Taussig procedure has been performed on thousands of children with great success and is still savings babies' lives today. A heart defect is the most common type of birth defect, with eight out of every 1,000 babies being born with such an ailment. The operation gave blue babies and their parents a new outlook on life and was a major milestone for children's heart surgery.
Do you have a fascinating story about research or an account about how research has touched your own life? Please send it to stacey@edstrom.com for consideration in future issues of the Edstrom UPDATE.
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