At 30 weeks, Bengaluru resident Anitha was settling into the quiet anticipation of the third trimester, ready to embrace the final stretch of her journey to motherhood. But during what should have been a routine antenatal scan at Manipal Hospital, Kanakapura Road, the clinical air shifted instantly.
The fetal medicine team had detected a silent, life-threatening crisis: her unborn daughter’s heart was racing at a frantic rhythm. The diagnosis was grim—the baby’s heart rate was so dangerously abnormal that fluid had already begun to pool around her tiny heart and abdomen. It was a race against time for a life that had not yet taken its first breath.
Doctors identified the condition as fetal Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT), where an electrical short-circuit in the baby's heart causes it to beat far too fast.
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According to experts, if left unchecked, this condition could lead to heart failure and even death in the womb.
A team of doctors led by Dr Shailaja N, alongside Dr Adi Narayan and Dr Surekha Balaji, Consultants - Fetal Medicine, and Dr Pavankumar P. Rasalkar, Consultant - Interventional Cardiology, came together with a plan to save the baby.
The mother was placed on a 2 antiarrhythmic medicines: Flecainide and Sotalol. The drugs would help slow and steady the heart rhythm and also interrupt the faulty electrical circuit in the heart.
The drugs taken by the mother would cross the placenta and reach the baby's bloodstream.
"The baby's heart was under severe strain. We had a narrow window to act because the baby was too premature to deliver safely. The only option was to treat the baby through the mother, and watching the hydrops slowly resolve on the scans was a relief each time. The baby responded well," said Dr Shailaja.
Meanwhile, the consumption of these drugs came with its risks for the mother. They had the potential to disturb the mother's own heart rhythm, and the patient developed low potassium levels.
Her ECGs, heart scans, and blood tests were regularly monitored. The fetal echocardiograms, week by week, reflected good improvement, and the baby's heart rhythm gradually normalised.
At 37 weeks, Anitha was admitted for a C-section and delivered a healthy baby girl weighing 3.02 kg. Both mother and daughter were discharged three days later.
