The concerning symptoms mum spotted in her baby boy before he was diagnosed with heart condition
| Published date | 05 April 2024 |
| Publication title | MyLondon (England) |
When Cole was born Katie, 26, thought it had been a "textbook" birth but she soon noticed he had several concerning symptoms, including a rash, cough, and “blue tinge to his lips”. Given Katie’s father had several heart conditions – ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, and cardiomegaly, an enlarged heart – and he died aged 64, when she was just 14, these symptoms raised alarm bells for her.
After pushing for a diagnosis, Katie was told by a GP that Cole had a heart murmur at four months old – and he was then diagnosed with pulmonary valve stenosis, a type of congenital heart disease, at Great Ormond Street Hospital GOSH. “I just felt so deceived, I hadn’t even known that my child had this,” Katie told PA Real Life.
“Can you imagine that doctor hadn’t found Cole’s heart murmur He could be dead. No other doctor picked up on it, and she said that murmur would have been there from birth.”
Katie was then told Cole would need immediate surgery, otherwise he could go into heart failure, and two options were given – either open heart surgery to have a valve replacement or a balloon angioplasty. Cole had a balloon angioplasty in July 2023, which stretches open a narrowed or blocked artery, and Katie later discovered this safer and less invasive form of surgery was pioneered by a British Heart Foundation BHF researcher.
While Cole will need “life-long cardiac care”, his surgery was a success – and Katie has now challenged herself to run the 2024 TCS London Marathon in memory of her dad and to raise money for the BHF. “I thought I went home with a healthy baby and he had a heart condition. Can you imagine that wasn’t detected and he actually died” Katie said.
“I just feel like more needs to be done in relation to how can we stop this or minimise it even from happening – of children being sent home with a heart condition that could either be fatal or become fatal. I can’t even describe the feeling of thinking you’ve got a healthy child to being told, ‘No, they’re going to need life-long cardiac care’.”
She added: “The doctors kept saying he looks healthy and he’s a healthy boy, he’s a very good weight, but had I not kept pushing for them to...
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