Babies born with one missing pumping chamber can live after surgeons reroute their blood
Surgeons disconnect the body's two great veins from the heart and plug them straight into the lungs, leaving the right ventricle to pump for the whole body.
The St. Bernadette Parish, Westlake Podcast · Sara Kronholz's StoryA baby can survive with only one working pumping chamber because surgeons can rebuild the body's plumbing so that chamber does the work of two.
The condition is called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. As Sara Kronholz, Anthony's mother, learned at her anatomy ultrasound, it means the left ventricle is missing or too small to function. In a typical heart, the right ventricle pumps used blood to the lungs for oxygen, and the left ventricle, the body's main pump, sends that oxygen-rich blood out to the body. Without that left pump, a newborn needs immediate intervention to live.
Anthony was born on January 23, 2018, and had his first open heart surgery at three days old. That operation is only a bridge, keeping the baby alive until the rerouting can begin.
The second surgery came at three months. Surgeons disconnected the superior vena cava, the large vein that brings used blood down from the head and upper body, from the heart and joined that vein to the artery that carries blood into the lungs. Blood from the upper body now bypassed the heart and went straight to the lungs to pick up oxygen.
Doctors then waited for Anthony to grow before handling the lower body. At age three, surgeons disconnected the inferior vena cava, the large vein carrying used blood up from the lower body, and connected it to the lungs as well. Because the natural vessel does not reach, they sewed in an extra tube, called the Fontan, to bridge the gap. At this stage, no pump moves blood to the lungs. Flow relies on pressure in the veins and gravity, and once blood returns to the heart, the single right ventricle pumps it to the body.
After that, Anthony lived what Sara Kronholz calls "a normal life for a kid with his heart condition," meaning a cardiology visit every six months. In late summer 2024, doctors believed a blood clot was inside the Fontan.
Blood thinners did not clear it, and by August 2025 doctors saw that blood was having more trouble getting through. Doctors scheduled a catheter procedure for October 22, 2025, to look inside through a tiny camera threaded up from the groin. This account stops before that October procedure.
Questions people ask
If there is no left ventricle, what pushes blood to the lungs?
Once the staged repairs are complete, used blood reaches the lungs passively, without a pump, driven by pressure in the veins and gravity. The single right ventricle is then reserved for the harder job of pumping oxygen-rich blood to the whole body.
Why does it take three operations instead of one?
Largely size. A newborn's vessels and lungs are too small to accept all of the rerouted flow at once, and the lungs need time to adjust to receiving blood without a ventricle behind it. Waiting months, then years, lets the child grow and makes the final connections safer.
What exactly is the Fontan?
The Fontan is an artificial pathway, usually a tube of synthetic material or donated tissue, that connects the lower-body vein to the pulmonary arteries. Because blood moves slowly through it and is not lined like a normal heart chamber, clots can form there years later.