Baby born with heart outside body survives
A baby girl born with her heart outside her body is believed to have become the first in the UK to survive. The parents of Vanellope Hope Wilkins had been told that a termination was their only option when the condition was spotted. Surgeons operated to place her heart in her chest.
A MOTHER who refused to terminate her pregnancy is celebrating giving birth to a “miracle baby” – believed to be the first in the UK to survive after being born with her heart outside her body.
Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins, of Bulwell, Notts, were warned that the extremely rare condition meant their baby had almost no chance of survival.
Today they told of their anxious wait after baby Vanellope Hope was born, with doctors warning that the first 10 minutes would prove crucial.
Mr Wilkins, 43, said: “We didn’t dare breathe until she took her first breath. When she cried, we cried. I felt hopeless and just held on to Naomi and was staring into her eyes praying that it was all going to be OK.”
“Twenty minutes went by and she was still shouting her head off – it made us so joyful and teary.”
Vanellope was due to be delivered on Christmas Eve but her rare condition meant she had to be born prematurely by caesarean section on Nov 22 at Glenfield Hospital, in Leics.
The condition, ectopia cordis, was discovered during a scan after nine weeks’ pregnancy. It showed the baby’s heart and part of her stomach were growing on the outside of her body.
After seeing the scans, doctors told the couple that a termination was the only option. Mr Wilkins, a builder, said: “My whole world just fell to bits.”
Ms Findley, a mother-of-two, said: “All the way through it, it was ‘the chances of survival are next to none, the only option is to terminate, we can offer counselling’ and things like that.
“In the end I just said that termination is not an option for me, if it was to happen naturally then so be it.”
Within an hour of Vanellope being born, a team of around 50 staff assembled to carry out the first of three operations which, over the course of several weeks, would put her heart back fully inside her chest. The procedures, with special lines inserted into her umbilical cord to give fluid and medication to support her heart, saw the chest gradually opened to create space for the heart to fit back in. Seven days later, doctors conducted a second operation to open her chest even more.
Over the next two weeks, the heart naturally made its way into the chest, helped by gravity, allowing staff to carry out a final operation, taking skin from under her arms and joining it in the middle of her body. Surgeons had created a mesh to protect the heart as she did not have ribs or a sternum. As her organs fight for space inside her chest, Vanellope is still attached to a ventilation machine.
Mr Wilkins said: “The moment she was born I realised that we had made the right decision. We know this is going to be a rollercoaster and have started to prepare ourselves for the difficult times ahead, but we needed to give her a chance, and the team here have done that.”
Estimates suggest five to eight babies per million are born with ectopia cordis. They generally have less than a 10 per cent chance of survival. Branko Mimic, the lead surgeon at the East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre, said: “Cases such as Vanellope’s, where everything else appears essentially normal, are even rarer, and whilst therefore it would seem more hopeful she will do well, it is therefore almost impossible to be confident of this.”
Vanellope was named after a character in the Disney film, Wreck It Ralph. Ms Findlay said: “Vanellope in the film is so stubborn and she turns into a princess at the end so it was so fitting.”