Infant Girl Dies After 5-Week Wait for a Heart
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LOMA LINDA, Calif. — One of two baby girls with terminal heart conditions has died a week after Loma Linda University Medical Center issued an urgent nationwide appeal for two healthy infant hearts for transplantation.
Baby Vicki, a 3-month-old girl with a degenerative heart disease called cardiomyopathy, died at about 4 p.m. Tuesday, Loma Linda spokesman Dick Schaefer said Wednesday.
The girl had been listed on regional and national organ procurement lists for five weeks.
The mother of the second dying infant, known as Baby Rachel, said Wednesday that her daughter has gained a little weight recently, but that her condition--underdevelopment of the right chambers of the heart--remains unchanged.
Loma Linda Medical Center officials said response was excellent to their nationwide appeal for infant donors. However, they said it is extremely difficult to find a suitable match for such young children.
The Loma Linda hospital is the same one at which Dr. Leonard Bailey unsuccessfully tried last year to save the life of an infant known as Baby Fae with a transplanted baboon heart.
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