An enormous tumor mass at the level of his throat - as big as his head - would have prevented him from breathing at birth.
The life of a 37-week-old fetus was saved at birth by a first-of-its-kind operation performed while the newborn was still connected to the placenta.
A few minutes are available for surgeons to extract it from the mother's belly and connect it to the heart-lung machine, before cutting the umbilical cord and completing the cesarean section.
The life-saving procedure, called Exit-to-Ecmo, was performed at the San Pietro Fatebenefratelli Hospital by a multidisciplinary team coordinated by specialists from the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital in Rome, where the tumor mass was also removed three days later.
4 months later, the child is well and has returned home with his family.
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