A baby boy born with his heart outside his body has survived into the sixth day, surprising doctors and forcing his poor Indian parents to seek financial help, UK MailOnline reported.
In order to help save the life of their son, Nirbhay and Priyanka Pal have appealed for financial assistance for their first-born child in the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday.
24-year-old Priyanka gave birth to her son at the government-run Sultanpur Hospital in Uttar Pradesh state late last Wednesday, according to SoftPedia. However, her son was born with his heart protruding out from his chest.
Known as ectopia cordis, the rare condition requires expensive surgery for the baby boy to survive and prevent him from dying within days, according to UK MailOnline.
"Ectopia cordis is a lethal congenital anomaly in which the heart forms outside the body, with very few reported survivors after surgical correction," SoftPedia reported.
With only eight in every one million births being inflicted with this incredibly rare condition, 90 percent of these babies are either stillborn or die within the first three days.
"However, the still-unnamed Indian baby has beaten odds of less than one in a million and is now into his sixth day, which means he urgently needs surgery and private healthcare," SoftPedia reported.
Thirty-year-old Nirbhay earns less than $5 a day by working as a mason at construction staff. As his son will not be able to live much longer with this condition, he has been informed by hospital staff that the baby needs to be moved to a more sophisticated medical facility.
"The doctors said we should go to a private hospital and get surgery done," Nirbhay said. "But I am a poor man. We can barely afford two square meals a day. I don't know what to do. We are hoping that the government will help us."
He added, "I have put everything at stake to save my child. We are feeling so helpless. We don't know where to go."
Although the expenses of the surgery are unknown, the baby boy has been transferred to a hospital in the neighboring city of Dehradun.
Take a look at pictures of the baby boy here.
