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Family Relieved After Infant Undergoes Successful, Non-Invasive Heart Procedure

NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) -- Parents of an infant facing a life-threatening open heart surgery have found relief through a new, non-invasive procedure.

Michelle Ribisi was in much lighter spirits on Thursday with her 4-month-old daughter Johannah in her arms.

Just weeks ago, she and her husband Jason feared the worst when their doctor discovered a hole in their baby's heart.

"When he initially said it was going to be open heart surgery, it was the scariest moment of my life, knowing they were going to cut open my baby," she told CBS 2's Dana Tyler.

Now, the Staten Island couple is celebrating a much happier fate. Doctors at the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park successfully used a stent to fix the murmur in the wall of Johanna's heart.

"These types of devices can be put in from outside the heart, so we don't have to open up the heart. We don't have to stop it," Dr. David Meyer, heart surgeon at Cohen Children's Medical Center, explained.

A team of heart specialists demonstrated how they threaded a recently designed surgical needle through a small opening in Johannah's chest. Before the procedure, a sonogram showed blood flowing out of a hole in Johannah's heart.

A new sonogram, taken after the procedure, showed her newly-repaired heart. Doctors said she is fine and will only have a small scar.

"A normal life. She will grow up to be a teen and drive her father crazy. She will get married and have children and all of that stuff," Cardiologist Dr. Shilpi Epstein with Cohen Children's Medical Center said.

Johannah's parents say she is eating up a storm and is active day and night.

"Now, I wake up in the morning and say, 'please go back to sleep,'" Michelle said.

It's a problem that the relieved parents say they will gladly take any day.

Johanna weighed just 9-lbs before surgery, but now tips the scale at 12-lbs.

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