A family in Miami, Fla. received an early Christmas gift Wednesday when doctors said their baby boy born with his heart outside his chest should be able to lead a close-to-normal life.

Doctors used a piece of Gore-Tex fabric and the boy's own skin to wrap the heart before putting it inside his chest hours after being delivered by Caesarean section Oct. 31 at Holtz Children's Hospital.

"He's not going to be able to play certain kinds of sports where a blow to the sternum to you and me wouldn't be a problem, but in him it would be," said Dr. Eliot Rosenkranz, a cardiothoracic surgeon. "So I think some competitive sports are going to be out, but he's going to be able to participate in other sorts of activities."

Prior to surgery, Naseem's heart looked like a peeled plum sitting atop his pink chest, with the aorta diving back underneath the skin. Nevertheless, the heart was beating away normally.

The baby was born with ectopia cordis, an extremely rare congenital defect in which the heart grows outside the body and the chest wall and sternum fail to develop. The defect was discovered in an ultrasound exam in late September after the mother, Michelle Hasni, 33, began feeling unusual movement from the baby.

"He was having hiccups, but it was constantly and it was every day," Hansi said. "I wasn't sure what the movement was."

Naseem will be fitted with a protective piece of plastic to wear over his chest. Surgeons will graft pieces of his own ribs across his chest to create a sternum, or breastbone, when he is about 6 months old.

Although doctors had not initially been sure that Naseem would survive until Thanksgiving, he could be home with his family as early as Christmas, Rosenkranz said.

Ectopia cordis occurs 5.5 to 7.9 times per 1 million live births, and the survival rate after surgery is less than 50 percent, the boy's doctors said.

Editor: Donald