Daily Times

In a rare case of childbirth, a baby boy was born with his heart outside his chest in Pakistan’s Multan city.

Doctors, however, said that the infant’s heart was functioning properly although he will require a surgery to place it inside his body. And if all goes well the child will live a healthy life. The child, born on Tuesday, was brought to the Lahore Children Complex as facilities in Multan were not at par, it was reported.

The rare disorder is called ectopia cordis in medical terms where the heart is located either partially or totally outside the thorax. It occurs in 5.5-7.9 per million live births, the report said.

Earlier this month, an infant girl was born with her heart beating outside her body in a village in lower Assam’s Dhubri district. She was kept at the intensive care unit in Gauhati Medical College. Later, she was flown to Narayana Hrudalaya in Bangalore for surgery.

Ectopia cordis is a congenital malformation in which the heart is abnormally located either partially or totally outside of the thorax. The ectopic heart can be found along a spectrum of anatomical locations, including the neck, chest, or abdomen. In most cases, the heart protrudes outside the chest through a split sternum.