Doctors discovered Sebastian was suffering a condition that prevented his tiny heart from pumping blood properly.
Scans showed that Sebastian’s aorta and his pulmonary artery, which carry blood to and from the heart, were the wrong way around.
And he also had no openings in the walls between the upper and lower chambers of his heart.
Now, at two months old, he is expected to live a normal life after doctors in Toronto operated on him in the womb.
Medics at Mount Sinai and Sick Kids hospital inflated a tiny balloon in his heart, which would have been about the size of a peanut at the time of surgery, to create a hole between the walls of the upper and lower chambers of his heart to allow blood to flow normally, reports CBC News.
His mum, Kristine Barry, said: “They always prepped us for a blue baby.
“They always said that he was going to be blue and not vocal because of the lack of oxygen.”
In most cases, babies with heart defects are often rushed to the neonatal unit after birth.
But without an opening between the walls of Sebastian’s heart it would have been impossible for doctors to circulate oxygen in his system once he lost connection with the oxygen provided by his mum through the placenta.
On May 18 doctors used a needle to insert a balloon through Kristine’s uterus and into Sebastian’s heart, all while mum was still awake.
They had to sedate Sebastian so he would not move during the procedure, and make sure he was in the right position for surgeons to access his heart.
The procedure was a success but it wasn’t a cure for his condition.
He still required open heart surgery after he was born to fix his reversed arteries, but the surgery performed in the womb allowed Kristine to give birth to him naturally.
Congenital heart defects are the most common form of birth defect in the UK, affecting more than eight in 1,000 births.
They are an abnormality of the heart which occurs soon after conception and often before the mother is aware that she is pregnant.
The defects can range in severity from simple problems, such as holes between chambers of the heart, to very severe malformations, such as complete absence of one or more chambers or valves.
But they are not always found during pregnancy or at birth, many are not found until childhood, adolescence, adulthood, or after death when it is too late.
It has been estimated that there are currently 250,000 adults with congenital heart defects in the UK, according to Congenital Heart Defects UK.
Though rare, performing surgery on an unborn baby has been carried out before.
Earlier this year it emerged an unborn baby was partially removed from the womb before he was born to allow doctors to remove a tumour from his tiny heart.
Dr Jack Rychik, director of the foetal heart program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where the surgery was performed, said: “The fetus was just about 6 inches in total length, and his heart was the size of a peanut, perhaps a centimetre or less.”
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