Infant born with heart beating outside her body

An infant girl with her heart beating outside her body was born in a village in lower Assam's Dhubri district and has been kept at the intensive care unit in Gauhati Medical College.

The infant's family members and health officials said today that the infant's heart is on her chest and she was born last night at Phutkibari village.

The case is an extremely rare congenital malformation and is called Ectopia Cordis in which the heart is abnormally located either partially or totally outside the throax, doctors attending on her said.

Following her birth, doctors in the rural hospital referred the infant to the government-run Dhubri civil hospital from where she was sent to Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) where she is being 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 tomorrow, they added.