A baby girl born in United Kingdom with half a heart has beaten the odds by surviving, despite not being diagnosed with a life-threatening condition until she was four-months-old
Scarlett Dougan was born with a rare illness called Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome (HRHS), where the heart’s right side is underdeveloped and is unable to pump enough blood to the lungs, the Daily Mail reported.
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Dougan’s mother Nichola began to think there could be a problem when she spotted a difference in temperament between her daughter and her son Nathanial, 23 months.
“Nathanial is such a happy wee boy, everybody knows how happy he is. But I think people started to think: She’s wild," because Scarlett was just so unhappy and screamed all the time,” Nichola recalled.
The 28-year-old primary school teacher eventually came to know the reasons behind her daughter’s constant crying and sleepless nights while talking to a Guide leader, who was also a paediatrician.
Nichola was advised to take her daughter to the Yorkhill Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow, where she was immediately whisked to intensive care, after an assessment. A treatment plan was drawn up for her.
Doctors told Nichola her daughter had overcome all the odds to make it so far without treatment.
“It is a miracle she is still here. The doctors can’t really believe how a child can get to four and a half months with that condition,” Nichola said.
Dougan has now gone through two major heart operations for rerouting her major arteries directly to her lungs to improve her flow of oxygen.
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