Meet little Iowa girl with a special heart

By CNN

Published February 13, 2020 2:47 PM

DES MOINES, IA (KCCI) — February is heart month and this week is Congenital Heart Defect awareness week.

The Centers for Disease Control says every four-and-a-half minutes a baby is born with a birth defect in the US. A heart defect is the most common.

Iowan Piper Veentsra is one of those babies. Only about half of Piper’s heart works properly.

Her mom, Diane Veenstra, he two-year-old has already undergone two open heart surgeries.

“To watch her go through this at one month and then at six months she has been through more just during that time span then some have in their entire lives and so to watch how resilient she has been just been incredible,” said Veenstra.

She’s not out of the woods yet. KCCI’s Alyx Sacks sat down with the Veenstras to chat about what’s next in Piper’s treatment, and how they’re preparing.

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Article Topic Follows: National-World

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