LAUREL — A Heidelberg newborn recently received the first arterial switch ever performed in the state.

Dr. Jorge Salazar, chief of congenital heart surgery for University of Mississippi Health Care in Jackson, performed the procedure earlier this month on Zavin Arellano, the son of Robert Arellano and Georgianna Joe of Heidelberg.

Salazar said the complex procedure involves switching the heart’s major arteries, which are reversed, back to their normal position and moving the delicate coronary arteries with the aorta.

Arellano said Zavin was born at 3:33 a.m. July 21 in Laurel. He was only three days old when the condition was found and Zavin and his family were flown to Jackson.

“In Laurel when he was born, they said that he had a heart murmur,” Arellano said. “They flew him to Jackson, and that’s where they told us he had a hole in his heart and his arteries were backwards. We thought it was only going to be a heart murmur, but it was more than that.”

Arellano said that when the surgery was performed on Aug. 4, he and Georgianna did not know it was the first time the procedure was performed in Mississippi.

“We were told that Dr. Salazar had done the procedure before, but we didn’t know it was done in Houston,” he said.

Arellano noted that Zavin quickly improved after the surgery.

“When he was in Laurel, he was blue because he couldn’t breathe that good,” he said. “Within a week of the surgery, he started breathing a little bit more. They took the oxygen out of his nose so he could breathe on his own. He started doing better and better.”

Arellano said the family couldn’t have survived without the prayers of his co-workers, family and friends.

“We got prayers from everywhere,” he said. “The doctors say he was a miracle baby. One thing the doctors told us was that the hole in his heart was keeping him alive because the oxygen and blood could flow through there. His arteries were so bad that if he didn’t have those little holes, it would have been a lot worse. He would have never survived.”

Joe said she is thankful for the doctors who helped save her son’s life.

“We’re really thankful for what they did for him,” she said “We want to give everybody thanks for their support, help and prayers.”

Georgianna Joe said her older sons, Gabriel, 9, and Elijah, 8, are also happy to have their little brother at home.

“Especially the 8-year-old,” she said. “He’s real happy.”

Salazar said the operation is considered a “litmus test” for comprehensive congenital heart programs.

“The reason why this operation is so hard is because technically it’s very challenging,” he said. “You have to transfer the coronary arteries which are like the gas lines to the heart. If there’s a problem, the heart can’t squeeze and the baby dies instantaneously.”

Salazar said that’s why it is important to have a high performing team such as the one at University of Mississippi Health Care.

“You have to be able to take care of all of the issues related to heart surgery in a newborn baby such as cardiology, anesthesia, ICU doctors, heart monitor machine technicians and nurses,” he said. “Every single person has to be strong on the team.”

Salazar noted that successful congenital heart programs have been performing procedures such as the arterial switch for years with a mortality rate of less than 1 percent.

“Mississippi has not had a comprehensive program until just recently,” he said. “These various complex newborns were being sent out of the state. The mom had just delivered, and their baby was whisked away to another state where there’s no family and no support structure.”

Salazar said the operation is unique because the heart defect is lethal, but once completed successfully, the baby can live a completely normal life.

Salazar said Zavin was a term birth following a “pretty uneventful pregnancy.”

“There were no problem with prenatal care,” he said. “A lot of heart defects can be seen on prenatal ultrasounds, but it’s oftentimes very difficult to see. It’s a subtle diagnosis sometimes.”

Salazar praised the doctors at South Central Regional Medical Center for identifying the heart problem and notifying UMHC. At that point, an AirCare crew flew to Laurel to bring the three day old Zavin to the Jackson facility.

Salazar said the diagnosis — transposition of the great vessels and a ventricular septal defect — required treatment within a matter of hours or Zavin could have suffered “permanent injury or even death.”

Salazar said transposition of the great vessels reverses the way blood circulates through the body, reducing the amount of oxygen in the blood. Without adequately oxygenated blood, the body can’t function properly. In layman’s terms, Zavin was born with two major heart vessels switched and a hole in his heart.

“This is one of the struggles that the kids in Mississippi have had up until this point,” he said. “They haven’t had access to care. We’ve all been working as hard as we can to improve health care for Mississippi children.

“We want to give the same high quality health care that you can encounter anywhere in the country,” Salazar added. “We want to provide first rate care and access to care to avoid the practical hurdles associated with having to leave the state. A lot of folks don’t even have a car or have not been on an airplane.”

Salazar said approximately 1 in 1,000 children are born with a heart defect or congenital heart disease.

“It’s a really big issue in terms of the impact on society and people’s lives,” he said. “A wonderful thing about heart disease in children is that 95 to 98 percent of the time you can really help these children.

“One of our greatest commodities is the life of a child,” Salazar added. “I’ve performed about 2,500 operations so far. You can accomplish these very complex repairs with risks much less than 5 percent, maybe even 1 to 2 percent risks. That means the success rate is over 98 percent.”

Salazar, a West Coast native, joined UMHC in April after several years at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Salazar said the hospital’s congenital heart team was created primarily of those currently on staff.

“They were all here, but they didn’t have a surgeon,” he said. “What they needed help with was implementing a successful recipe, somebody that knew how to put the team together.”

Salazar said the team has already performed nearly 70 operations with no deaths, a rate better than the national standard.