By Claire Elliot

A TODDLER who needed major surgery at 11 days old is only alive today because she was born with a hole in her heart.

Little Amy Cairns was left struggling for survival after she was born with a rare condition called transposition of the great arteries (TGA).

This meant her heart’s pulmonary artery and aorta were wrongly aligned and oxygenated blood was not able to circulate her body correctly.

Her mum Heather Reid, 43, of Dyce, Aberdeen, said the only reason Amy survived was because a valve in the heart that normally closes after birth stayed open.

In the womb the open valve is used to help fetal circulation. When it failed to close after she was born, the hole kept her alive as it continued to allow blood to flow through the heart with much-need oxygen.

Heather said: “She’s a miracle baby. If it had shut she wouldn’t be here today.”

Now as she watches her three-year-old daughter attend nursery like any other healthy toddler, she can hardly believe what the family has gone through.

A day after Amy was born at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital on May 19, 2006, doctors noticed the tot’s hands, elbows, feet and lips, were turning blue and that her skin had gone a pink mottled colour.

The 7lb 123/4oz baby was flown by air ambulance to Glasgow’s Yorkhill Hospital the next day when a scan confirmed the seriousness of her condition.

Nine days later, when she was just 11 days old, she underwent eight-hours of open-heart surgery to realigned her arteries.

The tot spent the next three weeks battling back to health in the hospital’s neonatal unit.

Now, Amy is like any other bubbly toddler, who loves to draw and play outside. She has also recently started nursery.

Heather, a checkout operator, said: “There were quite a lot of tears at the time. We were totally devastated as we had never heard of it before..

“It didn’t show up on the scan, only after she was born.

“But Amy’s amazing. She’s just sailed through everything.”

TGA occurs in just 20 to 30 of every 100,000 live births annually and is three times more likely to affect boys than girls.

In a normal heart, oxygen-depleted blood is pumped from the right side of the heart, through the pulmonary artery, to the lungs where it is oxygenated.

The oxygen-rich blood then returns to the left side of the heart and is pumped through the aorta to the rest of the body, including the heart muscle.

But in patients with TGA, the oxygen-depleted blood from the right side of the heart is pumped immediately through the aorta and circulated to the body and the heart, bypassing the lungs altogether.

The left side, meanwhile, pumps oxygenated blood continuously back into the lungs through the pulmonary artery.

Amy’s dad Brian Cairns, 43, a warehouse worker, said the family has never looked back since their daughter's surgery.

He said: “It was pretty devastating at the time because it was a bit touch and go.

“But Amy has never looked back since the operation. She’s bounced forward all the way. Now she’s just non-stop

and full of energy and she loves the outdoors.

“If it wasn’t for that hole she wouldn’t be here today. It kept her alive.

“We are very lucky.”

Now all Amy needs is a check-up once a year to make sure her heart is continuing to work correctly.