Medicine: Dangerous Bottleneck

Lorraine Delmonico's feet were always cold, but nobody bothered to find out why. Even when her first baby was born dead of poor blood supply it was put down to bad luck.

But last year, pregnant again, Lorraine went to Chicago's Presbyterian Hospital for a thorough check. The doctors found high blood pressure above her heart, low blood pressure below it. This, with a murmur heard over Lorraine's heart and other signs of abnormal circulation, indicated that she had suffered since birth from a coarctation (narrowing) of the aorta. The operation to correct this condition is drastic and dangerous; furthermore, there was...

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