Assam: Baby born with heart beating outside her body, kept in ICU

In a rare incident, a baby girl was born with her heart beating outside her body in Assam’s Dhubri district, reports said on Thursday. The infant has been kept at the intensive care unit in Gauhati Medical College.

The family of the infant and health officials said on Thursday that the baby, who was born at Phutkibari village on Wednesday night, has her heart on her chest.

Doctors attending on her say it an extremely rare congenital malformation and is called Ectopia Cordis. The heart is abnormally located either partially or totally outside the throax in this condition, they said. 

The infant was referred to the government-run Dhubri civil hospital and then was sent to Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH), where she is kept in the ICU, health officials said.

As GMCH has a tie up with Narayana Hrudalaya in Bangalore, the state health department is planning to shift the infant to that hospital for surgery on government expense on Friday, they added. 

(With inputs from PTI)