Baby born with heart outside her body saved by operation
A rare medical procedure has saved the life of a three-weekold girl who was born with her heart outside her body.
Vanellope Hope was born in central England last month. Parents Naomi Findlay, 31, and Dean Wilkins, 43, had discovered when Ms Findlay was nine weeks pregnant that their baby had ectopia cordis, but hoped that she could be treated at birth.
It is only the third time the procedure has been carried out.
The condition is recorded in only a few cases for every million births, and it usually results in stillbirths. In Vanellope’s case, she was born without a breastbone.
When her parents were told about the diagnosis, Ms Findlay was distraught.
“I burst into tears. The condition came with so many problems,” she said.
“All the way through, it was ‘the chances of survival are next to none, the only option is to terminate, we can offer counselling’, and things like that.
“If death was to happen naturally, then so be it.”
But the chances for Vanellope, who is named after a character from the film
Wreck-It Ralph, improved when paediatric cardiologist Dr Frances Bu’Lock told the couple that scans at 13 and 16 weeks showed she was “essentially normal”.
A further test revealed there were no chromosomal abnormalities, and the couple pressed on with their desire to give birth to Vanellope.
A medical team at the hospital began to draw up a plan for her birth and put Ms Findlay through a barrage of scans on her unborn child.
“We came together as a team of foetal medicine doctors, obstetricians, anaesthetists, cardiac and abdominal surgeons and cardiologists to review all of the available information and discuss how best to plan for a delivery, surgery and subsequent care,” Dr Bu’Lock said.
“It was decided that delivery by caesarean section would be best to reduce the risks of infection, risks of trauma or squashing of the heart during delivery, and that surgery to provide some sort of covering to the heart would be needed immediately after baby was delivered.”
When Ms Findlay reached her 36th week of pregnancy, the decision was made to conduct the caesarean, and at 9.50am on November 22 Vanellope was born.
About 50 doctors, midwives and nurses sprang into action, initially placing her body into a sterile plastic bag.
Within an hour of her birth, a ring was inserted to widen the 2.5cm hole in Vanellope’s chest and a cover was placed over her body.
During the next nine days, her heart returned to its natural position, moving fully inside her chest by December 1, when a Gore-Tex membrane was placed over the organ to stop skin growing on to it.
Vanellope is still hooked up to a ventilator, but doctors say that her chances for long-term survival are improving every day.
Ms Findlay, who also has a six-year-old son, explained why she named her daughter after the character from the Disney film.
“Vanellope in the film is so stubborn and she turns into a princess at the end, so it was so fitting,” she said.