A video has gone viral all over the Internet that shows a baby born with an extremely rare condition. This baby’s heart is partially beating outside his body.
The video was captured in Xianyang, Shanxi Province, China. The clip shows the baby’s heart covered with a thin layer of skin and beating outside his little body.
The nurse can be seen taking care of him, they gently wipe his chest, avoiding the sensitive care of his pumping organs.
This condition is called Ectopia cordis. According to revespcardiol.org, Ectopia cordis is a rare disease that it is defined by the abnormal position of the heart outside the thorax associated with defects in the parietal pericardium, diaphragm, sternum, and, in most cases, cardiac malformations.
This causes the heart to be located anywhere from the lower abdomen to the neck. As per reports, this rare disease only occurs in 5.5 to 7.9 per million live births.
The oldest case of the person who has survived this disorder is Christopher Walls, born in Philadelphia in August 1975.
Usually babies born with this condition die within first three days of their birth or are stillborn.
Though the exact cause of this is still unknown, but it’s believed that this might be related to the development of the baby’s lateral plate mesoderm during early pregnancy.
When the development isn’t proper, it causes lapse in the development of the muscle which helps to hold the organs of the baby in place. The failure leads to growth of the organs outside the body and also there is high risk of internal infection.
The number of such cases is more in the females. A fall or a hit during this condition could instantly kill the child.
Click here to watch the video:
