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Gegli news - Vanellope: Baby survives after being born with heart outside body - 12/13/2017 1:22:08 PM 1:22:08 PM 

Vanellope Hope Wilkins is recovering after undergoing three operations which allowed her heart to be put back inside her body.

 A baby born with her heart outside of her body has defied odds to become the first in Britain thought to have survived the rare condition.

Vanellope Hope Wilkins was due to be born on Christmas Eve, but the condition, ectopia cordis, meant she had to be delivered on 22 November at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.

Her parents Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins, from Bulwell in Nottinghamshire, discovered their child had the condition during a scan after nine weeks' of pregnancy.

It showed part of the baby's heart and part of her stomach was growing on the outside of her body.

Vanellope's parent's said doctors had told them termination was their only option, with experts saying they had not seen a case in the UK where a baby had survived.

Mother-of-two Naomi said: "I burst into tears. When we did the research we just couldn't physically look because the condition came with so many problems.

"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."

The 31-year-old spoke of her "relief" after hearing her baby's cries during the birth.

"I started to panic, I actually felt physically sick because I actually thought there was a big possibility I wouldn't be able to see her or hear her or anything really," she said.

"But when she came out and she came out crying that was it, the relief fell out of me."

The newborn following her surgery
Image:The newborn following her groundbreaking surgery

The newborn needed three operations after being delivered which moved her heart move back into her body before surgeons created a mesh to protect the heart.

They then took skin from under her arms and moved it round to join the middle of her body.

Dean said his world "fell to bits" when doctors advised the couple to abort the baby.

Speaking of the birth, the 43-year-old father-of-three said he was told the first 10 minutes following the delivery would be crucial.

"Twenty minutes went by and she was still shouting her head off - it made us so joyful and teary," he said.

Consultant paediatric cardiologist Frances Bu'Lock said Vanellope, who was named after a character in the Disney film Wreck It Ralph, would only have a "remote" chance of survival.


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