Midwife took one look at a newborn baby and told anxious mom to call 911 instantly: 'I don’t want to alarm you...'
Six weeks after giving birth, most parents expect routine check-ins, sleepy cuddles, and tiring feeding sessions. But for Allie, a regular visit to the midwife turned into the start of the most frightening phase of her life. She shared her plight through a Facebook post on November 19.
Allie wrote how she had brought her newborn daughter, Hendrix, to the midwife, thinking it would be a quick visit. Hendrix had been a little off, more tired than usual, not feeding well, but Allie never thought in her wildest dreams that it would constitute an “emergency.” The midwife paid close attention to everything. She studied Hendrix closely, her color, her sluggishness, the way she barely reacted. She asked minute and crucial questions: Is she always this sleepy? Is this her usual color? Has she fed like this before? Then she listened to her heart. In an instant, her knowledge and experience alerted her to the urgency.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” she said, “but her heart is beating extremely fast. Too fast.” Realizing how serious the situation was, the midwife immediately offered to call 911 herself. It wasn’t an exaggeration; she had spotted something that others might have missed. The mother decided to take Hendrix to the ER herself. She, along with her four kids, reached the nearest ER, where her partner, Drake, met them. At triage, she managed to say the numbers out loud because she knew enough to understand the danger. A heart rate of 280. Oxygen saturation at 75. The staff reacted quickly, and without further delay, they rushed Hendrix into a room.
Within moments, doctors, nurses, social workers, and lab techs surrounded the tiny newborn. IVs were placed, vitals were monitored, and EKGs were run. It felt like chaos, but meaningful. When Allie recalls that day, she shares that it looked like something from a movie, except nothing about this was pretentious. Doctors eventually got Hendrix’s heart rate down and stabilized her. But her heart had been racing dangerously fast for too long. She was admitted to the cardiac ICU for observation, where her parents spent the next three days watching monitors instead of soaking in newborn moments.
The diagnosis was supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), a condition where the heart suddenly beats far beyond what it can handle. After three days in the ICU and additional days on the cardiac floor, Hendrix had no further episodes. They went home with medication to regulate her heart rhythm. The cardiologist explained the three possibilities: she might outgrow the arrhythmia, she might need long-term medication, or she might eventually require an ablation procedure. Like any parents, they held tightly to the first option. For six months, they kept up with round-the-clock medication. The mother paid attention to every signal, every sound, every change in her daughter’s behavior. Life became a careful rhythm of hope and vigilance.
And then, at a routine appointment, everything changed again. The EKG showed no signs of arrhythmia. The cardiologist smiled and told them that there’s a real chance she could be 1/3 babies who naturally outgrow this condition. They would begin slowly weaning her off medication while keeping a close eye on her progress. For the family, it felt like the first deep breath in months. A step toward normalcy. A grateful journey with a midwife’s quick eye and a mother’s instinct not to ignore something “small.” Allie exclaimed that this was an answer to her prayers — the start of a new chapter for their strong, resilient little girl. UMPC Health Beat shares, "Children with SVT are born with an extra electrical pathway, most commonly separate from the normal conduction system... Most children will grow out of the condition by a year old. However, approximately 1 in 3 will have it happen again during school-age years, beginning around 5 years old and extending into the teenage years." Hendrix showed the classic symptoms of SVT, and it's the midwife's blessing that she was spared from a potentially traumatic ending.