Columbia, SC (WLTX) - This week is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness week and exposes what many don't know is the number one birth defect worldwide.
Evie Smith, now 4, was born with an undiagnosed Congenital Heart Defect.
"Just a beautiful, healthy baby we thought," Evie's mother Mandy Smith remembers.
Just 10 days after Evie was born, though, she was back in the hospital. "She had been suffocating and we had no idea there was anything wrong with her. It was there that she crashed completely."
Smith says a dozen doctors worked through the night to revive her newborn.
"Her defect means the two main arteries coming out of her heart are reversed," said Smith. "So normally they're supposed to be sending oxygen into the body. Hers were just kind of circulating."
Since then, Smith has documented her daughters progress in a blog. She says families with children with Congenital Heart Defects have an unspoken bond.
Evie described her heart as "broken".
Doctors said when she went to the hospital, her oxygen concentration was 80 percent lower than it should have been. Her body temperature hit 70 degrees.
"We were told by the doctors at the hospital that if we'd arrived minutes later, she wouldn't have survived," said Smith.
For more information on Congenital Heart Failure, visit the Palmetto Hearts website.