If parenthood is a marathon, Mallika Padmanabhan and Zach Martin had a pretty intense training regimen.
In early November 2022, Padmanabhan went in for her 28-week ultrasound, where a technician noted their son’s heart structure seemed smaller than it should. They were referred to M Health Fairview Masonic Children’s Hospital for a fetal echocardiogram, a noninvasive ultrasound scan of the baby’s heart.
“That was a pretty hard stretch of time for us,” Padmanabhan says, “because we were getting used to the idea of becoming parents, and then there was this ambiguity about his health.”
The family was in good hands at the Pediatric Heart Center at M Health Fairview Masonic Children’s Hospital, which is backed by the University of Minnesota’s 70-plus years of research and innovations for children with congenital heart defects and other cardiovascular conditions. This pioneering history includes being the first in the world to successfully repair a congenital defect through open-heart surgery and implant a device that keeps the heart beating while a child waits for a donor heart.
Today, proof of this legacy shows up as some of the best pediatric heart outcomes in the country.
When Padmanabhan and Martin’s son, Ashwin, was born in December 2022, he was immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit at Masonic Children’s Hospital, where he stayed for about three weeks. Then, throughout his first year of life, Ashwin had periodic echocardiograms to monitor his heart, which led to a big decision—Ashwin would undergo open-heart surgery to clear blockage of a membrane forming over his aortic valve. That surgery happened in February 2024, and today Ashwin is in “great shape,” his parents say. He’s a happy and active little boy, who recently started walking and running.
“The level of care was fully comprehensive,” Martin says. “It wasn't just the procedure, but everything leading up to it, everything that followed.”
Martin and Padmanabhan say they were so grateful for the care their family received at the Pediatric Heart Center that they wanted to do something to give back. They had learned about Every Heart MN and were inspired.
“What really struck me was all the other kiddos who are having their own battles, and some of them are more severe than ours, and I said, ‘Why don't we do a fundraiser to help the whole center as best we can?’” Martin says.
So they organized Traipse Twin Cities, a 26.2-mile walk through St. Paul and Minneapolis, rallying 27 friends and family members to join them and exceeding their $5,000 fundraising goal. Among those friends was Daniel Peck, MD, Ashwin’s pediatric cardiologist, which signaled to Padmanabhan and Martin that the care they receive isn’t confined to the hospital.
“Not only are they involved in the hospital, bringing very, very high-quality medical care, but there’s that compassion and authenticity,” Padmanabhan says. “They were there for [Ashwin], but then they were also there taking care of us.”
The money they raised will benefit the Pediatric Heart Center, helping to advance both clinical and research initiatives.
“There are always ways we can make things better, both for how patients do in ICU and how they do outside and become functioning children,” Peck says. “A place like the Pediatric Heart Center is where we investigate these new ideas and put them into practice.”
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