The Nation - News from Oct. 26, 1987

Doctors implanted a heart into a week-old Iowa infant who would have died without the transplant or surgery on her own malformed organ. Marissa Getting, daughter of Darlene and Robert Getting of Grundy Center, had the surgery at University Hospitals in Iowa City because she was born without the two left chambers of her heart. Her new heart came from a 2-month-old infant who died in Washington. Dr. Douglas Behrendt, who headed the surgical team, said the hospital had been preparing for transplant surgery on an infant for some time and was encouraged by the successful heart transplant Oct. 16 on a newborn in Loma Linda, Calif.