Kim Reynolds’s Doberman Saraya Wouldn’t Leave Baby Alexander’s Side, and at the Hospital His Heart Was Racing at 280 Beats a Minute

Saraya the Doberman would not leave the baby alone. All morning she stayed at 6-month-old Alexander’s side and cried each time he was taken away. Later that day, doctors in an English emergency room measured his heart at 280 beats per minute.

His mother, Kim Reynolds, 41, of Shepton Mallet in Somerset, now credits the family dog with catching a heart condition nobody had spotted. “She sensed it,” Reynolds told the British news agency SWNS, in a story carried by Good News Network. The Washington Post picked up the family’s story on Nov. 10, according to Newser.

A Clingy Dog on an Ordinary September Morning

Reynolds is a first-time mom and a former canine hydrotherapist, so she knows dogs. Saraya is a family pet, not a trained or registered assistance dog, MedBound Times reported from the SWNS interview.

That morning in September, Saraya was unusually needy. She would not leave Alexander’s side and whined whenever he was moved. Reynolds told SWNS she was puzzled by how needy and obsessive the dog had become.

Later in the day, Alexander became upset and started to look unwell. Reynolds took him to the hospital. She has since said she dreads to think what would have happened if she had simply put him in his cot and walked away.

280 Beats a Minute in the Emergency Room

At the emergency department of Royal Bournemouth Hospital, staff found Alexander’s heart racing at 280 beats per minute, according to Brit Brief and MedBound Times. For comparison, a normal resting heart rate for a child under one year old is 100 to 180 beats per minute, according to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Doctors first tried to slow his heart by dipping his face into cold water with ice, twice, for about 10 seconds each time. It did not settle the rhythm. Three doses of intravenous medication finally brought his heart rate down. Alexander was then taken by ambulance to Poole Hospital, where Reynolds stayed with him for two nights.

Two days after that first emergency visit, doctors gave the family a diagnosis: Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Reynolds told SWNS she had never heard of it, and that it had not been picked up at birth or at earlier hospital visits. She said his care at Bournemouth and Poole was faultless.

What Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome Means for a Baby

Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, often shortened to WPW, comes from an electrical wiring fault in the heart that a person is born with, according to the NHS. It usually happens by chance, and only rarely is it passed from parent to child. The fault can set off sudden bursts of very rapid heartbeat that last from seconds to hours. The NHS says it is more common in men and can show up at any age.

Babies cannot say their heart is pounding. UPMC lists poor feeding, fast breathing, paleness, vomiting and unusual sleepiness as signs of a fast-rhythm episode in an infant, and says infants with this kind of rhythm often have heart rates above 180 beats per minute, sometimes up to about 300.

The cold water Alexander’s doctors tried first is a standard first step. The NHS lists cold water on the face among the “vagal manoeuvres” that can stop an episode, with an injected heart-rhythm medicine as the backup when those fail.

UPMC says this kind of fast rhythm, known as supraventricular tachycardia or SVT, affects about one in every 1,000 children. Most children grow out of it by their first birthday, though about one in three have episodes again in their school years. Treatment often starts with a beta blocker. When medication does not control it, the NHS says the main treatment is cardiac ablation, which burns or freezes a tiny area of heart tissue to stop the faulty signals.

Alexander now takes the beta blocker propranolol three times a day, given by syringe. Newser reported that he may still need surgery. Reynolds told SWNS the doctors explained that SVT on its own is not the danger, but SVT that keeps going is.

Saraya Raised the Alarm a Second Time

Weeks later, in October, Saraya started acting strangely again. Alexander was in his bouncer, and the dog lay down beside him, licked his hands and kept looking up at Reynolds.

Her first fear was that his heart was racing again. She checked his pulse, then noticed his throat looked red. A trip to the emergency room ended with a diagnosis of bacterial tonsillitis and a prescription for penicillin, Good News Network reported.

Since then, Reynolds says she trusts Saraya completely. She told SWNS the dog knew his heart rate was higher than it should have been.

A Mom Now Raising Money for Baby Heart Checks

Reynolds now wants other parents to know about the condition. She told SWNS it is important to raise awareness, and that she wonders how many babies have SVT without their parents realizing.

In October, she and her sister Francine completed a 100-mile challenge to raise money for Tiny Tickers, a UK charity that works on early detection of serious heart conditions in babies, MedBound Times reported.

Her advice to other parents is short: always trust their gut, she said, according to Newser.

Alexander’s story joins others of parents who caught what checkups missed, like Sonny Stubbs, who noticed something about her newborn son’s eyes that hospital staff had not, and Marcelle Miller, who spotted a faint cloudy ring in her daughter’s eye. In Alexander’s case, the first one to notice had four legs.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP / Wagner Souza e Silva – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons