Pioneering op for girl born with heart outside of her body

VANELLOPE IS A 'ONE-OF-A-KIND' CASE

- By POST REPORTER

A MIRACLE girl who was born with her heart outside her body has undergone a ground-breaking UK-first operation to protect the fragile organ.

Vanellope Hope Wilkins, seven, of Bulwell, beat eight-million-to-one odds after she became the first baby in Britain to survive the ultra-rare condition.

She was diagnosed in the womb with ectopia cordis in which the heart is located either partially or totally outside of the chest.

Her parents were told there was “next to no hope” when the abnormality was picked up at a nine-week scan and they were advised to terminate the pregnancy.

But mum Naomi Findlay and dad Dean Wilkins refused to give up hope and Vanellope was delivered by C-section at Leicester's Glenfield Hospital in November 2017.

Most babies affected have a less than 10 per cent chance of survival but battling Vanellope defied the odds. Doctors said they knew of only a handful of cases worldwide where a baby has survived the condition and none in Britain.