A day after Christie signed the measure, the test was performed on Bill and Lisa Gordon's son Dylan
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A newborn baby pictured in this file photo at Columbus Hospital in Newark. NEWTON — Little Dylan Gordon apparently was eager to be born — two months before he was due, he was already causing contractions.
But mom Lisa Gordon of Hampton Township and doctors knew he needed more time before he entered the world, and they delayed his arrival as best they could, with Gordon even taking a drug called Procardia to delay preterm labor.
It turns out the wait was healthy for Dylan in ways his parents couldn’t even imagine.
The baby arrived Aug. 30, one day before the state’s hospitals began implementing a simple test for all newborns — the first of its kind in the country. The inexpensive state-mandated pulse oximetry test, which looks for congenital heart defects, revealed Dylan, red-cheeked and by all outward appearances healthy, had a life-threatening condition. His aorta was much too narrow, his parents were told.
"Most of these children look lively until they die," said Donna Timchak, the pediatric cardiologist at Morristown and Overlook medical centers who treated Dylan.
In Dylan’s case, he was ready to leave Newton Medical Center in Sussex County on the second day of the new mandate, Sept. 1. He appeared healthy, but the law required the test be performed.
The test, a little elastic bandage on the end of a tiny finger, measures the level of oxygen in a newborn’s blood using LEDs, said Timchak, who’s also an associate clinical professor at Columbia University’s Children’s Hospital of New York. About eight in 1,000 live-born babies have congenital heart defects, and she said the cost — about $25 — was worth it.
"If he had been born a day earlier," Gordon said, "he wouldn’t be with us today."
The test result started a medical whirlwind around the tiny boy. He was sent to Morristown Medical Center, where his defect was fully diagnosed. Later that day, he was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York, where doctors kept him alive while treating an intestinal infection before operating on his small heart.
"I could not believe the amount of wires that he had to be hooked up to just to keep him alive," his mother said.
Dylan was sent home 10 days later, and since then he’s been a normal baby — smiling, laughing, eating and sleeping.
But the infant’s doctors say if the test requirements were not in effect, he would have died at home within a day or so.
Dylan was the first baby in the state to be saved by the test. Since Aug. 31, about 350 babies born each day in New Jersey hospitals have been tested, according to the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
"The fact that the Gordons’ child was saved by this test only one day after the law went into effect underscores the critical importance of this procedure," said Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell (D-Hudson), the legislation’s sponsor. "When we sent the bill to the governor in late April, we knew that time was of the essence in getting it signed."
Gordon and her husband, Bill, say the law saved their son and they credit Gov. Chris Christie with signing it. The governor subsequently met them at Newton Medical Center to share his good wishes.
"So — he’s doing well?" Christie asked.
"We’re doing very well," Gordon responded.
Related coverage:
• N.J. becomes first in nation to screen newborns for heart disease