A miracle baby lives with his heart out of his body

Two-month-old Neel (name changed) is one among the rarest of rare children born with 'Ectopia Cordis'—a malformation of heart outside the body—and surviving after undergoing a surgery by doctors here.

One-and-a-half-month after the surgery by a team of surgeons at Apollo Hospital, Neel is living beyond the expected short life span of such children, doctors said.

Neel is around four kilograms now. Once he attains more weight, at least six kilos, doctors said they will perform another surgery on him.

"We hope that we will be able to deliver successful results in the case of this baby who was referred to us from Jalandhar," senior paediatric cardiologist at Apollo hospital Dr Vikas Kohli told PTI.

A team of ten doctors from different specialities have been involved in taking care of Neel, Kohli, who is heading the medical team, said.

Pointing out the slim chances of survival in this case, experts said that in a similar case, despite the best efforts of the doctors at AIIMS earlier this year, a baby with this defect did not survive for more than 22 days.

"Such cases have rarely survived earlier. Only three children are alive after they were operated in 2004 and 2008. While two are in Gurgaon and Bhopal respectively, the third is in Russia," Dr Kohli said.

Born on September 7 at the Apollo Hospital, doctors found that Neel not only had Ectopia Cordis but also had five cardiac defects, medically known as Pentalogy of Cantrell.

"With help of the 3D CT scan machine, exact space in the chest was calculated and finally on September 14, the team carried out its first surgery on the child," paediatric cardiac surgeon at Apollo Dr Raja Joshi said.

"Neel withstood the surgical procedures well as we relocated his heart in the abdomen. We covered his heart after carving out a small chunk of skin from his stomach," he said.

The team which is looking after Neel included paediatric urology surgeon Dr Sujit Choudhary, senior consultant foetal medicine Dr Anita Kaul and members of the neonatology department including Dr Anjali Kulkarni.

Dr Gurudev Chowdhary of Lifeline Hospital at Jalandhar, who had earlier attended on Neel, said, "On the 34th week of pregnancy, we detected that the child had extra mass on the the area close to chest (extracoelomic cardiac mass). I guessed that it might be a case of Ectopia Cordis. Neel's mother was then immediately referred to Apollo hospital in Delhi."