Four Days in 'Cooling Bag' Saves Baby's Life

British surgeons use therapeutic hypothermia on 16-week-old boy.

ByABC News
June 17, 2010, 5:20 PM

June 18, 2010— -- Finley Burton, a 16-week-old British baby who was born with an undiagnosed heart defect, is warming his parents' hearts today after surviving complicated and unconventional surgery.

According to the tabloid press, the infant was "frozen" for four days so that surgeons could repair two holes in his heart.

"Before, he was very quiet and withdrawn," said his mother, Donna Link-Emery of Newcastle in the northeast part of England. "Now, he is so loud and happy and smiley and just such a good baby. His presence fills the room."

The procedure -- therapeutic hypothermia, or lowering of the body temperature -- is commonly used in the United States, especially with babies who undergo surgery for birth defects, according to Dr. Timothy Gardner, a surgeon and recent president of the American Heart Association.

"But to say the child was frozen is absurd," he said.

British doctors cooled Finley's body to about 92 degrees Fahrenheit, just a few degrees below a normal body temperature of 98.6, to stabilize a near-fatal rapid heart rate during heart surgery.

"This child had a constellation of problems," said Gardner, who read the British reports. "Two holes in the heart and a blockage in the aorta. The surgery was moderately complex."

Chances of recovery in these cooling operations are usually "excellent," he said. "The one true thing in the story is the picture of the baby and how he looks."

According to the boy's mother, "He's brilliant, he's doing really well, and hopefully that will be forever. We've got our fingers crossed."

Finley's heart problems began when he was only 10 weeks old. Link-Emery and her partner, Aaron Burton, 31, took the child to the doctor when he wasn't putting on weight and had trouble breathing.

Gardner said the child was showing signs of cardiac arrest.

"He was literally sniffling and chesty because of his condition," Link-Emery told ABCNews.com. "Now I can't hear him and I have to check to see if he's breathing all the time."

Doctors referred Finley to the University Hospital of North Durham.

"I had a normal pregnancy and nothing was picked up on any of my scans, so I was expecting it to be a routine visit," she said.

But doctors could hear a heart murmur and ordered an echocardiogram, an EKG and an X-ray.