'I don't know what we would have done without it,' newborn baby's heart defect found during newly required screening

QUINCY, MI - Payton Morris is mild mannered with bright, exploring eyes and tousled hair. She sleeps better than many and complains about little other than her meals, which she demands with typical, desperate urgency. Monday, Feb. 9, the 2-month-old wore a onesie with pleated sleeves and a pithy saying about being genetically cute. It was not until her mother pulled down the collar of her shirt, exposing the start of a pink scar running vertically down the center of her chest, that it became clear little Payton had ever been anything but a normal, healthy baby girl. Last month, Payton underwent a successful heart surgery, scheduled before she became inevitably sick, because doctors knew of a congenital defect within about a day of her Nov. 22 birth at Hillsdale Community Health Center. Payton was among the first in the state to benefit from a newborn screening test made mandatory last year in Michigan hospitals, according to a statement from the University of Michigan Health System, which is raising awareness during Michigan's Congenital Heart Defect Awareness week. The university has done the newborn screening since 2003 and advocated for the requirement.

Within hours of her arrival, her parents, Holly and Rob Morris of Quincy, knew their daughter had total anomalous pulmonary venous return, a congenital heart disease affecting the pulmonary veins that is difficult to detect before birth. Payton's pulmonary veins, the veins coming back from the lungs, returned to the incorrect side of her heart, said Dr. Richard Ohye, the head of pediatric cardiovascular surgery at the children's hospital. "Since we knew about it, we didn't have to wait for something bad to happen," said Ohye, co-director of the Michigan Congenital Heart Center.