Heather Voss knows that feeling all too well. Her daughter Skylie was a happy, healthy baby – or so they thought — right up until they learned she needed a heart transplant. “When she was a month and a half old, she went off to daycare in the morning, and within two hours she was in the local emergency room,” says Heather.

Skylie was diagnosed with cardiomyopothy. “One side of her heart was extremely enlarged and not pumping blood,” explains Heather. After trying unsuccessfully to treat the condition with medication, doctors told Heather that Skylie needed a heart transplant.

Luckily for Skylie, her family lives in Minnesota, so she was transferred to the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Fairview, one of the nation’s premier facilities for pediatric heart transplants. Founded in 1981, the transplant center’s pediatric organ transplantation program is the only one in the state that regularly serves infants.

The team of experts at University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital specializes in stabilizing children pre-transplant, performing heart transplantations and providing follow up medical care. Physicians at the hospital performed the first infant heart transplant in Minnesota on a six-month-old and have since performed a heart transplant on a one-month-old child.

Skylie was three months old when she had her heart transplant. She spent two months in the hospital following her surgery. She is now 10 months old, and “doing really well,” says her mom. Although Skylie suffered one bout of rejection, she has since been able to decrease the amount of anti-rejection medication. “We’re down to a check up every six weeks,” reports Heather.

Dr. Cynthia Herrington, a cardiovascular and thoracic transplant surgeon who was part of Skylie’s medical team, explains that there are many different reasons that a child might need a heart transplant, such as congenital heart disease, a heart defect, or as in Skylie’s case, cardiomyopathy. “Heart transplants are the best hope for pediatric patients with serious heart disease,” she says. “While there are a wide variety of support devices for adults, there aren’t many options for children.”

About 300 pediatric heart transplants are performed in the United States every year. Once a child is placed on the list for a heart transplant, it can be a matter of days or months before a heart is available. Skylie waited for three weeks before a match was found.

Many children are hospitalized during that time, as was the case with Skylie. “It was really hard to see her heart deteriorate before she got her transplant,” says Heather. “She was on a ventilator and her heart function was down to 5 percent.”

While it was a very stressful time, Heather praises the doctors and nurses who were with Skylie along the way. Heather looks forward to seeing the staff when she and Skylie go back for checkups.

“We have a long history of research devoted to improving results for pediatric patients. We are proud of our reputation for innovation and advanced technology in performing heart transplants for infants and children,” says Herrington.

About the Author
For more information on Skylie or University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, visit www.uofmchildrenshospital.org/newheart.

Think back to when you were growing up, and all the times when you felt self-doubt, confusion, and frustration. It’s tough growing up! You can help your children get through the bumps and bruises of childhood by simply being there for them. Children need to know that when the whole world feels like it’s crashing down around them, they have one safe, secure place to go, and one bottomless source of unconditional love.

Listening is as much a skill as giving a speech is a skill. It’s not just a matter of picking up sounds: active listening involves an array of behaviors that express your attention, empathy, and respect. Listening to your children in this way will go far toward convincing them of your unconditional love. Keep these guidelines in mind when your child has something important to say to you:

1. Put down your paper or dishtowel. Shut off the TV. Maintain as much eye contact as your child seems comfortable with. Make body contact, such as a hand to the shoulder, if that seems appropriate. Often, when children are trying to express a problem, thought or concern, their parents say they are listening, but half of their attention is somewhere else. You can’t con a child this way. Typically, a few minutes of sincere, attentive listening is worth more than an hour of letting your child talk while you carry on with another activity.
2. Don’t rush to jump in with solutions, ideas or lectures. Often, children just need a sounding board. They need another person listening to give them an opportunity to figure out exactly what they want to do. Solving your child’s problem may give you the relief of ending his or her discomfort; but, in the long term, it’s worth far more to them to get the support they need to formulate solutions on their own.
3. Demonstrate that you’re listening by asking appropriate questions and making “listening” sounds such as: “Hmmm,” “Oh,” “Really?” “Darn!” “Wow!”
4. Validates your child’s fears and feelings. When our children come to us with negative emotions, it’s far too tempting to minimize them: “Oh, don’t worry about it.” “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” These comments do much more harm than good. It’s important for children to learn to trust their own feelings and to listen to them. By brushing them off, you’re giving your child the message that his or her feelings are wrong or unimportant. You can validate your child’s feelings instead with such comments as, “That sounds embarrassing.” “It can hurt to feel left out.” “That must be frustrating.”
5. Help your child to focus on possible solutions, rather than getting mired in the problem. If the situation isn’t one that can be solved — if it’s a condition rather than a problem — encourage your child to express his or her feelings fully, and then move on. Help your child use forward thinking phrases like, “I bet you wish…” or “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” or “What do you think you’ll do now?”

Copyright Elizabeth Pantley. (McGraw-Hill, 2003)

About the author:
Elizabeth Pantley is the author of several books, including Gentle Baby Care : No-cry, No-fuss, No-worry — Essential Tips for Raising Your Baby, The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, Kid Cooperation (with an introduction by William Sears, MD), Perfect Parenting, as well as her latest The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers and is also president of Better Beginnings, Inc. She is a popular speaker on family issues, and her newsletter, Parent Tips, is seen in schools nationwide. She appears as a regular radio show guest, and has been quoted in Parents, Parenting, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, American Baby, Working Mother, and Woman’s Day magazines. Visit Elizabeth’s web site http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth.