Girl, 8, overcomes odds thanks to this minimally invasive medical device

    HANOVER, Minnesota (WCCO) -- For any parent, the arrival of a new baby is joyful. But for a Hanover, Minnesota, family, a prenatal checkup turned into quite a medical journey.

"You don't realize how small they are premature," Max Krauth said.

Max and Kirsten Krauth's daughter, Rian Krauth, was born with fingers so tiny that she could barely grip her dad's pointer finger.

You'd never guess that now, though. Today, Rian Krauth is a spunky, singing 8-year-old with a bright future ahead. But that future wasn't always so clear.

"We had no idea what the outcome was going to be. We couldn't even hold her until she was 10 days old," Kirsten Krauth said.

Rian Krauth decided to enter this world 13 weeks early. What Kirsten Krauth thought was a routine prenatal appointment turned into an emergency C-section.

"During my appointment, my water broke," she said.

Rian Krauth spent 91 days in the NICU before going home.

"They said she's just gonna, she's gonna be just fine. Because she's feisty, she's spunky, she's gonna make it, you know, just fine," Kirsten Krauth said.

Amid her early arrival, Max, Kirsten and big brother Miles Krauth found that her size wasn't the only obstacle she needed to climb.

Doctors found a heart murmur — it was an atrial septal defect, a hole in the upper two chambers of her heart, causing blood flow to move backwards. Doctors kept a close eye on Rian Krauth until, at 2 years old, her heart was working too hard and it was time for surgery.

Instead of open heart surgery, the Krauths opted for something minimally invasive: a device inserted through an incision in the leg, called the Abbott Amplatzer Device. The device closed the hole in her heart. Following the procedure, Rian Krauth was running around the hospital the next morning.

"She was just herself. She was Rian so soon after," Kirsten Krauth said.

It's a spark Rian Krauth still has today.

"It makes all the little progresses that any child has just a little bit more important," Max Krauth said.

Marveled by the innovation that saved their daughter's life, the Krauths keep a tiny reminder close by.

"Don't dismiss the resilience of a child. They are so much tougher than you think they are. They're just incredible little creatures," Max Krauth.

Kirsten Krauth works with medical devices, and at the time worked with the company that created the device that saved her daughter's life. Kirsten and Rian Krauth got to meet the doctor who invented the device. Kirsten Krauth says it was a very special moment.