Vanellope '˜first UK baby' to survive birth with heart outside her body

Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins spend precious time with daughter Vanellope Hope as she recovers from her life-saving operations, Picture: Ben Birchall/PA

Vanellope Hope Wilkins was due to be delivered on Christmas Eve – before a rare condition meant she had to be born prematurely by caesarean section on 22 November at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.

The condition, called ectopia cordis, was discovered during a scan after nine weeks of the pregnancy. It showed the baby’s heart and part of her stomach were growing on the outside of her body.

Her parents, Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins, of Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, said the first scans led doctors to tell them that a termination was the only option.

And experts, including the consultant cardiologist, have said that they do not know of a case in the UK where a baby has survived such a condition.

Speaking of when she first found out about the condition, Ms Findlay, 31, said:  “I burst into tears. When we did the research we just couldn’t physically look because the condition came with so many problems.

“All the way through it, it was, ‘The chances of survival are next to none, the only option is to terminate, we can offer counselling’ and things like that.

“In the end I just said that termination is not an option for me, if it was to happen naturally then so be it.”

Explaining what it felt like after the birth, she said:  “I started to panic. I actually felt physically sick because I actually thought there was a big possibility I wouldn’t be able to see her or hear her or anything really.

“But when she came out and she came out crying that was it, the relief fell out of me.”

Describing her emotions almost three weeks after Vanellope was born, she said: “I just want to climb into her cot and take her place, just to let her breathe a little bit.”

Mr Wilkins, 43, a builder, said: “We still didn’t know what we were looking at when we saw the scan. We were told that our best bet was to terminate and my whole world just fell to bits.”

He said: “What they said is, when the baby is born she has got to be able to breathe … Twenty minutes went by and she was still shouting her head off – it made us so joyful.”

The couple said the baby was named after a character in the Disney film, Wreck It Ralph. Ms Findlay said: “Vanellope in the film is so stubborn and she turns into a princess at the end.”

Frances Bu’Lock, the consultant paediatric cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, said she had described the chances of the baby surviving as “remote”. She said: “I had seen one 20 years ago but that pregnancy was ended.” She added that she had done some research, but there was little material available, and “the cases are all very different”.