Giving Babies Time as We Round Out the Year

At the 9th World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology & Cardiac Surgery in Hong Kong, we had the chance to offer something that felt both practical and urgent: a hands-on atrial septostomy workshop. With support from MAP International, the Edwards LifeSciences Foundation, and the recently FDA-approved redesigned Miller Balloon, cardiologists were able to learn how to safely perform this life-prolonging procedure at the bedside with guided echo. For babies born with transposition of the great arteries (TGA), this is the difference between having hours to live and having months to reach the surgery they need to survive. Without an atrial septostomy, they simply don’t make it.
 
Dr. Gareth Morgan from Children’s Hospital Colorado led the training, and we brought cardiologists from leading institutions across Africa, Asia, and Australia together for hands-on atrial septostomy training. Instead of traveling to each institution separately, we used the unique opportunity of the pediatric cardiac world gathering under one roof to share skills, exchange knowledge, and send these physicians home with the tools they need, literally to save the next child who arrives in crisis.

This work is part of our Training, Research, and Innovation Program, and, as our final mission of the year, it was one focused entirely on training. The babies who benefit from these interventions will still face the challenges of receiving the surgeries required to repair their congenital heart defects, but now they have the one thing they were previously denied: time.
 
Mending Kids exists to bridge these gaps, build local capacity, and give children a fighting chance. This workshop was one more step in that direction.
 
As we head into 2026, we’re holding these children, and the many still waiting, close in our thoughts.
 
Together, we are mending kids
 
Isabelle Fox
Executive Director

Be a lifesaver

---

mark your calendar - 03.21.2026

secure your tickets/tables