Christopher Wall spent the first three years of his life in a hospital because he was born with ectopia cordis (pictured at left), a rare birth defect that made his heart form outside his chest. Considering most babies born with the condition only live for about two weeks, it’s a testament to modern medicine that Wall is alive.
The condition is incredibly rare—it only happens around eight times out of every million births. As a consequence, there is not much known about the cause of the disease except that it may be associated with Turner Syndrome [ed. note: Which, as one commenter pointed out, occurs only in females]. In some cases, the heart can end up by the neck, or on top of the chest area, or in the abdominal cavity. These days, ultrasounds and sonograms would detect the defect, and it would not be an total surprise for the expecting mother.
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