‘Baby Rachel’ Receives a New Heart in Loma Linda

“Baby Rachel,” one of two baby girls for whom Loma Linda University Medical Center issued a national plea for heart donors three weeks ago, underwent a heart transplant operation here early Tuesday morning, hospital officials said.

A third infant, 15-month-old “Baby James,” underwent heart transplant surgery performed by Dr. Leonard Bailey, director of pediatric cardiac surgery at the medical center, on Saturday, a hospital spokesman said.

The operation on 3-month-old Baby Rachel, who was born with a deformed heart, was also performed by Bailey, spokesman Richard Schaefer said.

The other infant girl, identified only as “Baby Vicki,” who was born within a week of Baby Rachel and who suffered from a severely weakened heart muscle, died April 15. A heart donor could not be found for her, Schaefer said.

Bailey is the doctor who placed a baboon’s heart into a 12-day-old girl known as Baby Fae in October, 1984. She died at the medical center 20 days later.

Schaefer said the condition of Baby James, who was born with a weakened heart muscle and also suffered from pneumonia and congestive heart failure in recent months, was upgraded Tuesday from critical to fair.

Schaefer refused to provide details about the hometowns, full identities or donors in the cases of Baby Rachel and Baby James because the infants’ parents have requested confidentiality.