Baby born with heart out to undergo surgery today

CEBU, Philippines - The baby girl, who was reported to have been born with her heart outside her body, is scheduled for surgery today in a private hospital in the city.

The girl’s family, however has second thoughts about letting her undergo the procedure to the high cost of the operation and the skepticism on her survival.

According to Delia Etcuban, grandmother of the baby, in a telephone interview with The Freeman yesterday said, she brought the child to the said hospital after observing her coughing.

The baby was born through a ‘hilot’ or a local midwife inside their house in sitio Das, barangay Bitoon, Daanbantayan town dawn last Saturday.

The baby is the fourth child of the family.

When the doctor at their town had a look at the baby, it was recommended that the family take the child to a private hospital in Cebu City.

Yesterday, Etcuban said, the baby whom they named as Niña Mary had x-rays taken and is now taking antibiotics via intravenous drip.

The mother of the baby, Sweetsie Etcuban Magdadaro, was not able to go with the child because of her condition after giving birth.

Etcuban said that a specialist in cardiology recommended that an operation is needed to put the heart where it should be.

But one of the doctors, according to Etcuban, told her that based on the x-ray result, for some reason, there is not enough room inside the baby’s chest to accommodate the heart. She said that another procedure has been suggested to them.

One of the doctors of the said hospital in a phone interview with The Freeman said the baby is suffering from thoracic ectopia cordis.

If not for the condition of the baby, the grandmother described her to be healthy.

The doctor said that the baby was generally like an average Filipino child at birth in terms of average size and weight.

The heart is normally protected by the rib cage and muscles in the chest, and in this case, the heart is not, but is functioning.

This congenital disease according to the doctor is very rare and only 7.9 cases for every one million.

Only a few cases are recorded in the medical community for this condition, which is also why there is no ‘standard procedure’ for treating this according to the same doctor.

But according to Dr. Peter Mancao, a Cebuano heart surgeon, when asked for his opinion by The Freeman, he has operated on a similar case at the Philippine Heart Center in the mid 1990s and the patient survived.

According to him the boy’s heart is partially protruding out of the chest and the procedure needed is to open the cavity and put the heart back in its place.

“Iuli (heart) sa sulod kay nasirad-an man ang cavity, ato nang ablihan ug isulod og balik,” Mancao explained.

He also added that the lung is very soft can adjust itself to accommodate space for the heart being inserted back to its place.

Etcuban said, they need P10,000 and a bag of B-plus blood if the mother would decide to push through with having her child undergo the operation today.

Daanbantayan town Mayor Sun Shimura, in a telephone interview, said he learned only of the news because of this paper and assured that he will be sending someone to check on the patient today to assist them with their financial needs. —Edwin Ian Melecio/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)