ROUTINE SCAN UNCOVERED BABY'S SERIOUS HEART DEFECT

A FAMILY who was told their unborn baby was suffering from a life-threatening condition and needed immediate emergency treatment at birth have spoken about a lifeline that helped them through their ordeal.

- By JAMES HOLT

Bilal’s son Zinedine was rushed in for open-heart surgery just two weeks after being born. He had been diagnosed with a hypoplastic aortic arch, a congenital heart defect that prevents blood from flowing from a major artery.

The devastating news came during their anomaly ultrasound scan, in which the family were given the option to either abort their child or ‘take the risk’ with major, lifesaving surgery shortly after his birth.

Bilal from Worsley and his partner Farah were handed the news during the 20-week scan with foetal medicine teams at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester earlier this year.

But, desperate to start a family together, they continued with the pregnancy.

Over the remaining six months, they attended multiple scans to check on little Zinedine’s condition, with Farah taken into hospital and remaining in an intensive care unit ahead of the birth.

As anew-borm, the tot was hooked up to ventilator machines and taken into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where he remained for two weeks to build up enough strength for his urgent open-heart surgery to ultimately save his life.

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Bilal said: “Everything looked to be fine at first, until our 20-week anomaly scan, where the little man was being a pain in the backside.