Newborn baby boy battling a heart defect

Dane Michael Brodine was born on June 11, 2019 via C-Section. During delivery, he swallowed a significant amount of amniotic fluid, which caused him to have breathing issues. Dane was sent up to the NICU to be on oxygen and to be monitored. That afternoon, his mom and dad found out he may have a possible lung infection & he had high CO2 levels in his blood. The doctors decided they would treat this as an infection, which resulted in iv antibiotics and a 7-10 day stay in the NICU. 

The next day, his breathing had not improved, so the doctors decided to do more tests. During a routine echocardiogram, they discovered that Dane had a congenital heart defect called VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect). 

Your heart has two sides, separated by an inner wall called the septum. With each heartbeat, the right side of your heart receives oxygen-poor blood from your body and pumps it to your lungs. The left side of your heart receives oxygen-rich blood from your lungs and pumps it to your body.

The septum prevents mixing of blood between the two sides of the heart. However, some babies are born with holes in the lower septum. A hole in the septum between the heart's two lower chambers is called a ventricular septal defect (VSD).

VSDs allow blood to pass from the left side of the heart to the right side. This means that oxygen-rich blood can mix with oxygen-poor blood. As a result, some oxygen-rich blood is pumped to the lungs instead of out to the body.

His parents were informed that baby Dane would need a open heart surgery, possibly two. Since he is not very strong, they suggested waiting two months to do the surgery. We will find out tomorrow whether his condition has stayed the same or gotten worse, which will determine whether they wait the two months, or whether he goes into emergency surgery. 

His parents, Bree & Dane already have 3 little girls at home all under the age of 7. Dane own a very successful, yet busy business and Bree is a stay at home mom. With all of this going on, we are asking for help. I am baby Dane’s aunty Brookie, Bree’s only sister. 

We found out today that baby Dane is in possible heart failure. They are putting him on heart medication, but are telling us it “may not work”. He is currently at Torrance Memorial, but we are working hard to get him transferred to Children’s Hospital. He will need to be airlifted to Los Angeles and be in the NICU for awhile, so we are asking for prayers, help for upcoming medical expenses and funds for the girls & the family. All of Danes medical bills will cost my sister and her husband thousands of dollars. 

Please share our story and help our little fighter!

I will be posting updates as soon as we receive more information.