After Surviving Two Open-Heart Surgeries Baby Shows Parents His First Smile

Mar 16, 2020 by apost team

Theodore “Teddy” Nelson was born on August 30, 2019 – and was immediately whisked away to undergo heart surgery. He has spent months at the hospital and  when he was six months old he smiled at his parents for the first time after undergoing a second open-heart surgery.

Teddy was born with a congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. In this condition, the left side of the heart fails to develop normally, so parts of it are too small or even missing. As a result, blood does not flow through the heart normally. Under normal conditions, the right side of the heart pumps blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen, while the left side of the heart sends oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. In hypoplastic left heart syndrome, the underdeveloped left side of the heart has trouble pumping blood to the body. 

As teddy was born with this condition, he had to undergo his first surgery 15 minutes after birth.

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Teddy underwent his second open heart surgery on November 3. He also suffered a stroke around the same time, and his parents Michael and Alexandria Nelson form Buffalo, New York, feared brain damage. Alexandria later told Good Morning America that she worried that Teddy wouldn’t be able to smile. She was afraid that the stroke would have damaged the nerves in the brain that enable someone to smile.

To her relief, Teddy smiled for the first time on February 6. By then, he had been in the hospital for 185 days. Alexandria commented that his smile gave her a “glimmer of hope.”

Teddy is being treated at the UMPC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. His parents, who live in New York, travel there to visit him. Michael and Alexandria managed to record Teddy’s first smile. Over 325,000 people viewed it after WBMA, an ABC affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama, shared it.

Teddy’s older sister, McKenna, 4, was also present for Teddy’s smile. Alexandria told GMA that Teddy loved McKenna’s voice and enjoyed Michael’s gentle touch. Teddy will need a third surgery in a few weeks. Alexandria hopes that she and the rest of the family will be able to take Teddy home later on. She let GMA know that Teddy has a lot of “determination and fight” and added that the hospital staff called Teddy “feisty.” She believes that Teddy’s “half a heart produces twice the love.”

Do you know anybody who has had to undergo heart surgery? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this article along to others.