We purchased an Owlet baby monitor before our baby was born. After our birth experience, we were thankful we had one. Our little one has worn it almost every night since she was born, and other than it alarming for poor readings due to it falling off or moving around after she went to sleep, we hadn’t had any concerns with her health. Until the night of the Fourth of July. Earlier that week she had gotten her four-month vaccinations and had a fever off and on like babies sometimes do after their shots. We had just given her a bath and were getting her ready for bed. We had put her pajamas on, and I was giving her a bottle while rocking her to sleep. All of a sudden, the Owlet started flashing and beeping stating she was going to need some help sleeping. After looking at the app on my phone, it was saying her heart rate was 250+ beats per minute. 

                  She still seemed normal and was alert and awake. We did a quick assessment of her and ultimately, we weren’t sure if we believed the Owlet. We grabbed a stethoscope and listened to her heart, but I wasn’t able to count her heart rate as it was so fast.  I know babies have a higher heart rate anyway and I wasn’t going to be able to tell the difference between 150 beats per minute and 250 beats per minute. We decided it was best to bring her to the ER. She was still acting the same as she had all day, so we just decided to drive her ourselves. When we got there, they hooked her up to the EKG and it was reading that her heart rate was anywhere from 250-300 beats per minute. They told us her heart was in supraventricular tachycardia or SVT for short. 

                  Later we have since understood that SVT is somewhat common in young babies and has probably gone undiagnosed with many but due to the use of monitors like Owlets, we were able to detect it. Everyone’s heart has four chambers, two atria which are on the top, and two ventricles which are on the bottom. In older kids and adults, we have a layer of insulation between the atria and the ventricles. In young babies that layer is not fully developed yet. This layer of insulation prevents extra signals being sent from the heart’s natural pacemaker, but since hers wasn’t fully developed, she was receiving extra signals causing her heart to beat really fast. 

  When kids are older, they would be able to tell you their heart feels funny as they may experience symptoms including heart palpitations, chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, and fatigue. For our little one not being old enough to tell us anything it was a bit more difficult. We could tell she didn’t feel great, but we equated that more to her fevers and recent shots than anything else. She may have been having some of those symptoms, but we were not able to detect any of them. 

While in the ER on the Fourth of July, she had flipped back and forth from a regular heart rhythm to this SVT a couple of times. Due to the unpredictable nature of this heart rhythm and the fact that she was going in and out of it, they decided to try and send us to Children’s Hospital in Omaha. Children’s ultimately said that since she was out of SVT at that time, they would not admit her, but were willing to come pick her up and transport her to their ER for her to consult with the cardiology team that night…well, now very early morning. 

At the Children’s Hospital ER, the cardiology team provided us with additional information regarding the diagnosis and prescribed us the medication to keep her heart rate under control. The difficulty was that it was a holiday weekend and since we required the medication in liquid form due to her being an infant, most pharmacies didn’t have it on hand. They were comfortable sending us home and we were set to pick up the medication as soon as the pharmacy would have it which would be Monday morning. There was no way to predict if her heart would go back into SVT or not. They taught us a few maneuvers to try and get her back to normal rhythm if it were to happen again.  

This diagnosis is not life threatening and has a great prognosis. If someone were to be in SVT for several hours to days even, then it could start causing issues with other organs.  From what I have gathered is that about one third of babies will outgrow it around one year old, about one third of babies will have it continue through toddlerhood, and about one third of babies it will go away but has the chance to come back later in life. There is no way to determine which will happen with her. 

We were set to head home with a date to follow-up with Children’ s Cardiology team in three months.

Now that you have read part one of our story with SVT, stay tuned for part 2. I definitely didn’t see it coming and I bet you wont either. Based on what we have learned so far, we are hopeful that we can manage it at home and our baby girl will keep growing and return to her giggly self in no time.