A baby was born in obvious respiratory distress gasping for

A baby was born in obvious respiratory distress, gasping for breath and showing cyanosis (blue skin due to poorly oxygenated blood). This continued for days with no sign of improvement. Initial imaging studies revealed that the heart was structured as shown in the attached diagram ( https://i.gyazo.com/2e9abca75b1f78807a8074ed07196794.png ).

Answer the following 3 questions:

a. What is wrong with the heart structure shown in the left diagram?

b. The neonatal cardiologist was astounded that the baby could survive at all. Based on the structure shown in the left diagram, she would have expected the baby to die within minutes of birth. Briefly explain why the cardiologist would have expected the baby to die so quickly.

c. Upon closer examination of the images, the cardiologist realized that her initial assessment of heart structure was wrong. As shown in the right diagram, there was also a ventricular septal defect (VSD, a hole in the septum between the ventricles). In addition, there was a patent (open) ductus arteriosus (PDA, not shown in the diagrams) connecting the pulmonary artery to the aorta. Flashing back to her undergraduate physiology class, she realized why the baby did not die immediately. Briefly explain how these two additional birth defects (VSD & PDA) would allow the baby to live, at least for a while.

Solution

a. Problem in the left diagram: Pulmonary artery should be originated from the right ventricle and the aorta from the left ventricle, which is opposite in the diagram.

b. Because of the non purification of deoxygenated blood in the lungs, oxygen will not be able reach the tissues, aorta will carry deoxygenated blood and it will be spread through-out the body,so the baby will die immediately. Pulmonary artery will carry only oxygentaed blood back to the lungs, no purification should be happning in the body.

c. if ventricular septa is observed the arota may carry some oxygenated blood because of which the baby might survive for sometime.In a PDA, the vessel does not close and remains \"patent\" (open), resulting in irregular transmission of blood between the aorta and the pulmonary artery.
Because of the both defects the blood flow will be proper in the heart for sometime, so the baby did not die immediately.