VIDEO — ‘So Grateful’: New York Baby Thriving After Receiving World’s Smallest Pacemaker

A New York baby with a serious heart condition is thriving thanks to help from an extremely tiny device.

When the baby’s parents, Sarah and Michael Oliveri, went to their 20-week ultrasound for their third baby, doctors focused on their infant’s heart. The Olivers were eventually sent to the cardiology department, CBS News reported on Saturday.

The baby was later diagnosed with a heart block and though the family feared they would lose the precious child, Sarah said, “But we always, from the very beginning, believed that he was going to be OK.”

Doctors said the baby had complete heart block, which is the most common type in children, per the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“In complete heart block, the electrical impulse never gets past the A-V node. The only reason a person can survive is that another, slower natural pacemaker takes over in the ventricles,” the hospital’s website reads. “The ventricles continue to pump blood out to the body, but more slowly than normal.”

The team at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone essentially saved the baby’s life via a specially adapted device, per NYU Langone Health.

The baby, named Mikey, was delivered on December 5 and doctors knew he would need a pacemaker as soon as possible, according to Reina Tan, M.D., who is Mikey’s pediatric cardiologist and electrophysiologist.

Mikey was too small for a standard device. But Tan and her brilliant team kept looking for a solution.

“They turned to Medtronic’s Micra, a tiny, leadless pacemaker no bigger than a large vitamin and weighing about as much as a penny. The device had to be specially adapted for Mikey, transforming it into a version where it could be used as a pacemaker generator after pacing leads were attached to his heart,” Langone’s website reads.

The device, which is the world’s smallest pacemaker, was surgically implanted into Mikey on December 17 thanks to Tan and T.K. Susheel Kumar, M.D., who is a pediatric cardiac surgeon.

Video footage shows Mikey living his best life and an x-ray showing the tiny device. According to Langone, he returned home with his family on January 2:

“We’re so grateful to the team at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital for saving Mikey’s life,” his mother said.