http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/31/india.dangling.heart/index.html

Baby born with heart outside his chest

A newborn baby boy with a heart protruding from his chest is set to undergo a complex surgery in New Delhi, India doctors said Monday.

The child has been admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where his heart has been covered with a synthetic membrane and infected blood fully replaced from his body, said A.K. Bisoi, professor of cardiothoracic surgery.

He told CNN that the four-day-old baby was taken in with a severe infection and dehydration as his parents brought him in a train from a remote region along India’s border with Nepal.

The child also has a hole in his heart and is thought to have an extremely rare condition called ectopia cordis where the chest fails to close over all or part of the heart.

“There are only five to eight cases of this kind in one million live births,” Bisoi told CNN.

Doctors were surprised that the baby had been able to survive despite so many complexities, he said.

Surgeons may now plan to carry out an operation using a total circulatory arrest procedure that will also involve creating a home for the heart in the chest, said Bisoi.

The baby, who suffers from immuno-deficiency, will be put in a state where his blood will be cooled down to 18 degrees, (64 Fahrenheit), for a half-an-hour stage of the operation, he explained.

“We are working with hope,” Bisoi said when asked about chances of success.

In 2006, doctors in Florida, U.S. carried out a similar operation on Naseem Hasni who was born with his heart outside his chest.

The operation was carried out immediately after Naseem was born by caesarean section at a Florida hospital.

Doctors wrapped his heart in Gore-Tex, a waterproof, breathable fabric used in outdoor clothing and medical applications. His heart was then wrapped in a layer of his own skin, to substitute for his missing pericardium, the sac that encloses the heart.

The heart was then slowly eased inside his chest.

*...Sends happy, get well soon thought towards parents and baby…*

I hope things go well for them.

I need to look to see if this is on the internet somewhere but several months ago Erik and I were watching a program that was covering various kinds of birth defects and other unusual medical occurrences and procedures.  A young adult man was also profiled with this condition but his was never corrected at the time and his heart was still ‘exposed’  I believe they were able to cover it with extra skin but that’s all so he lived his life with a kind of armor strapped around his chest to protect it from being even slightly hit or otherwise compromised even when he slept. 

VIDEO:  http://video.filestube.com/video,ccab6864b981c6ff03e9.html

I believe it was this gentleman:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectopia_cordis 

Christopher Wall (19 August 1975) holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest living person with condition.

VIDEO of Christopher Wall:  http://video.filestube.com/video,ccab6864b981c6ff03e9.html

Often, as soon as many of these unusual conditions are reported here though, is it just me or do a lot of these seem to come from India and Afghanistan rural areas?

hulitoons - 31 August 2009 02:47 PM

. . .is it just me or do a lot of these seem to come from India and Afghanistan rural areas?

Keep in mind that one out of every six people lives in India, and that they’re generally a bit more open about things than are the Chinese.

Enormous population + major telecommunications systems all over the place + reporters and newspapers all over + a cultural adoration of birth defects = lots of such stories making it into the national news, and from there spreading internationally.

It’s got to be something in the water over there.

Yeah, I remembered seeing something on the news a while back, about a young man with the condition. His was partially-recessed into the chest, but still freaky to see this pulsing lump, like some sort of alien parasite…

Robin Bobcat - 31 August 2009 11:54 PM

Yeah, I remembered seeing something on the news a while back, about a young man with the condition. His was partially-recessed into the chest, but still freaky to see this pulsing lump, like some sort of alien parasite…

was he the one in the link I found above?  (here’s the link again: VIDEO of Christopher Wall:  http://video.filestube.com/video,ccab6864b981c6ff03e9.html )

All seems to be going well.

Oh good.