(LONDON) -- When Claire Ives was seven months pregnant with her
third child, she used a handheld device to listen to her unborn
son’s heartbeat. As she turned the machine on, she thought
something had malfunctioned. “I thought I wasn’t listening right
or something,” Ives, a nurse in London, told ABC News. “I didn’t
believe his [heart] rate could be that fast.” Ives’ son had a
heart rate of about 300 beats per minute, nearly double the
normal 160. After doctors were alerted to the baby’s elevated
heart rate, Ives delivered her son, Edward, five weeks early via
emergency cesarean at the University College London Hospital.
Edward was born with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and was
given a 5 percent chance of survival. SVT is caused by improper
electrical impulses in the heart that lead to an irregular rapid
heartbeat, which then can lead to heart failure or affect
internal organs. When the heart beats too quickly, it can’t fill
up properly and then distribute blood to vital organs correctly.
“I just thought