A baby boy born with his heart on the outside of his chest has stunned doctors by surviving into his sixth day.

The poverty-stricken parents of a baby born with his heart on the outside of his body have launched a desperate appeal to save their son. The couple, from an impoverished part of India, need funding to pay for their tiny son’s medical treatment. Priyanka Pal, 24, gave birth to the baby boy last Wednesday at the government-run Sultanpur hospital in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. However, the family was horrified to discover the baby had been born with his heart protruding from his chest.

Nirbhay Pal, the baby’s 30-year-old father, said: ‘We were hoping that we would have a happy journey from here on but God had planned something else.

‘We have been blessed with a son, but his life in the balance.’

The baby was born with the very rare condition known as ectopia cordis, which affects only eight in every one million births. About 90 per cent of babies born with the condition are stillborn or die within three days. The child needs immediate surgery after doctors warned his parents he will not live long with the condition. However, Nirbhay only makes £3 a day working on construction sites, the reports gather.

He added: ‘The doctors said we should go to a private hospital and get surgery done. ‘But I am a poor man. We can barely afford two square meals a day. I don’t know what to do. We are hoping that the government will help us.’

It is not yet known how much the operation will cost.

Although the chances of him surviving past his third day was less than one in a million, the as-yet-unnamed tot is in need of private health care and a vital but expensive operation.