You know that expression about how your heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of your chest? One baby girl in the U.K. recently experienced something like it literally — and survived.
Weeks-old Vanellope Hope Wilkins had a condition called Ectopia cordis, meaning that her heart and a portion of her stomach were growing outside of her body, reports The Guardian. Babies born with the problem, which affects five to eight children per million, usually have less than a 10 percent chance of surviving.
Though told that they should terminate the pregnancy, her parents Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins of England decided against it. They sought out a special blood test to look at possibly serious chromosomal problems the baby could face at birth. The parents-to-be were also warned about potential heart damage and womb circulation issues that could end the pregnancy before the baby was born. And in order for the baby to have the best chance, the pregnancy would have to last as close to the baby’s due date as possible.
“When the results of that test came back as low risk of any abnormalities we jumped up and down in the living room and cried,” Wilkins said in a statement. “At that point we decided to fight to give our daughter the best chance of surviving.”
After a worry-filled pregnancy (the baby’s heart rate was much slower than it should’ve been at 25 weeks, for instance), Wilkins was born Nov. 22 and has had three surgeries since to place her heart back in her chest, reports The Guardian.
It was an absolute privilege to be invited to tell the tale of a baby born at Glenfield Hospital in #Leicester with her heart on the outside of her body for @PA pic.twitter.com/uaB9jQ6RN1
— Josh Payne (@JoshPaynePA)
One of these surgeries — performed one week after she was born — involved opening up her chest slightly to give her heart room to fit, reports The Guardian. Gravity helped the heart move into place during the next two weeks.
Baby Wilkins’ case, though, is rarer than most.
“Cases such as [Wilkins’] where everything else appears essentially normal, are even rarer, and whilst it would seem more hopeful she will do well, it is therefore almost impossible to be confident of this,” Dr. Branko Mimic, the lead surgeon at the East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre, told The Guardian. The baby is connected to a ventilation machine while her organs are working to fit inside her chest.
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This Baby Was Born With Her Heart Outside Her Body originally appeared on usnews.com
