BEATING THE ODDS Meet Mila... the who’s kept alive

Surgeons had to use all their skills as they worked on the toddler including having to stop her heart during the operation

With her bright eyes and cheeky smile little Mila Kerr looks like any other healthy toddler.

But when she was born she was so ill her parents feared their first cuddle with her might also be their last.

She had four large holes in her heart, her windpipe was attached to her oesophagus, and her oesophagus did not attach to her stomach.

Surgeons had to stop her heart in a life- saving operation when she was just a few weeks old, and since then she has been kept alive - by a rubber band.

It was tied around her pulmonary artery to stop her from drowning in her own blood.

Mum Michelle Haley, from Ayr, said: “They managed to close the large hole at the top, but her heart was so small they couldn’t access the three at the bottom. But, if they didn’t do it, they said she would go into heart failure because her heart would be working too hard and there would be too much blood going into the lungs.

“So, to give her the chance to grow, and hopefully allow the holes to close themselves, they put this band around her pulmonary artery to stem the blood flow to the lungs.” Each of the holes in Mila’s strawberry- sized heart measured around half a centimetre.

Now as she watches her 15- month- old develop like any other toddler, the 36- yearold, said: “She’s my biggest inspiration. Not a day goes by when she doesn’t wake up with a smile. She’s an amazing little miracle and just happy to be in the world.

“I can’t get over how she can be so sweet natured after everything she has been though.

“She’s been a little warrior since day one.”

And while some cardiac babies tend to be smaller than their peers, Mila is already above average on all of her growth charts.

During her 10- week fight for life, however, Michelle and dad Ross Kerr, 34, an offshore turbine engineer, feared they would never see their little girl, who suffered countless complications, i n c l u d i n g a collapsed lung, doing so well.

Her diagnosis came as a shock as her parents had expected to take their baby home after a couple days.

B u t w h e n doctors tried to put a tube down Mila’s throat and into her stomach when she started to bring up mucus,