Vanellope had his first operation at Glenfield hospital 50 minutes after birth and was successful. Dean Wilkins, 43, said proudly that he and his mother Naomi Findlay had been declared by doctors that the baby's survival rate was less than 10%, and that she would face great challenges after birth, but she survived with strength. 'we didn't even dare breathe until she was breathing alone. When she let out the first cry, we also left tears. She cried for 20 minutes. It was such a happy moment. '
Vanellope was due on Christmas Eve, but doctors decided to have a C-section a month earlier. At that time, 50 doctors were on standby at the scene. 50 minutes after vanellope was born, doctors connected her breathing tube and introduced the lead into her heart. Then the doctor opened her chest, trying to find some space for the strong little heart, and gradually used gravity to guide her heart back to her chest in the next two weeks. The third step is to insert a rib like mesh to protect her heart, and then transplant the skin around her arm to wrap the heart.
Her father and mother named her "vanellope" from the Disney movie "the invincible king of destruction". Naomi, 31, wanted her to have the same tenacious personality as vanellope in the movie and finally become an outstanding princess. They also gave their daughter a middle name, hope.
The 4-pound (1.8kg) baby is now recovering in the hospital. She is the first child in the UK to survive a heart ectopia, which is one in five million. Doctors had told this fact during her pregnancy, but the strong mother did not choose to give up. Dad Dean recalled: 'at the moment she was born, I realized that we had made the right choice. '
Now doctors are very optimistic about vanellope's situation, 'at least now she has a chance to meet her future, but she still has a long way to go. '
Experts say most babies with heterotopia die shortly after birth, and there have been no successful treatments in the UK in the past decade.
June Davison, a senior heart nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said heart heterotopia is a rare congenital defect, and few people choose to treat it. The result of diagnosis usually depends on the severity, heart position and deformity.
Even if there have been cases of surgical repair, the survival rate is still very low.
Only 50 cases live to the age of 12, and the oldest survivor in history is Christopher wall, who was born in Philadelphia in 1975.