15-Minute-Old Newborn Gets Pacemaker for the Heart

Jaya Maharaj, who was diagnosed in the womb with a severe heart ailment, entered the world with a heart rate of 45 beats per minute. A healthy newborn heartbeat is 120 to 150 beats per minute.

A team of doctors at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital determined the girl, born nine weeks premature, had only hours to live if they did not perform the surgery.

“The only way to save this baby was to deliver the baby right away and then the pacemaker,” said Dr. Katsuhide Maeda, the surgeon whose steady hand stitched the pacemaker’s electrical leads to Jaya’s walnut-sized heart.

Today, at a little less than three months old, Jaya weighs more than 8 pounds and is thriving.

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