Sofia’s parents, Andrea and Melanie, have been living in Singapore for business reasons for the last 7 years. Andrea is originally from Italy and Melanie is French-Korean. A few years ago, Melanie became pregnant with twins and gave birth to two beautiful girls (Sofia and Elena).
Elena was in very good health, but unfortunately it was not the same for baby Sofia: after some examinations, the doctors identified that something was not right with her oxygen levels. She was immediately admitted to the intensive care unit, underwent some scans and was finally diagnosed with a very rare medical condition: her pulmonary valve was missing and she also had a hole in her heart.
Sofia’s situation was so severe that her parents were not sure if she was going to survive. It was very hard for them to see the little baby connected to all those tubes and not being able to hold her. But at least the couple felt relieved for having Allianz Care cover and support: "The last thing you want to do in this situation is worry about the costs of the treatment. We felt very supported by Allianz Care in this difficult time.” The medical case was supervised in Allianz Care by one of the doctors in our Medical Team. “She followed up with us regularly to check how Sofia was doing, which was really nice and showed her human approach."
Sofia had three surgeries in total. The main surgery happened when she was 8 kg, big enough to undergo an open-heart surgery that took six hours. The surgery was successful and Sofia recovered really well. The twins are almost two years old now and have just started pre-school. Sofia is achieving all development milestones for a child at her age. She is a little fighter and went through a lot in her two years. We believe she takes her strength from her parents, as Melanie says: "Before having them, we weren’t even sure if we were ready yet to be parents but when Sofia and Elena were born, we had to be strong for them. We had to lead by example."
We are wishing Sofia, Elena, Melanie and Andrea all the best for their future.