A pregnant mother waited three weeks to have a deadly heart tumour removed so that her baby would be strong enough to be born during the same operation.
Susannah McKenzie’s condition, called a myxoma, is thought to be the first of its kind to be treated in the UK, and only the fifth in the world.
Susannah, 32, was pregnant with her second child – who was due on Christmas Day – when she was diagnosed with the potentially fatal heart tumour.
Now she and husband Andy have thanked the team of almost 40 specialists at Oxford’s John Radliffe Hospital who performed a ground-breaking procedure to deliver the baby boy by caesarean and then remove Susannah’s deadly tumour.
The myxoma was spotted at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon when Susannah was 29 weeks into her pregnancy.
The 3cm mass, which hovered around the left atrium of her heart, put her at immediate risk of suffering a stroke, killing her and her unborn baby.
