Nestled in the hospital humidicrib alongside baby Taylor Gardner is not a teddy bear or a toy, but a pacemaker attached to her tiny heart, keeping her alive.

In a world-first medical procedure, surgeons at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Australia, have fitted the premature baby – whose heart is the size of a small cherry – with the pacemaker outside her body.

When she was fitted with the pacemaker, nine hours after her premature birth three weeks ago, Taylor weighed only 541g and is believed to be the smallest baby to undergo such an operation. She is now a healthier 720 grams (19oz), but is still so small that the grey and green heart regulator appears bigger than she is.

During 19-week scans on her mother, Rebecca Gardner, doctors discovered thazt the baby had a complete heart block, a condition that usually affects babies whose mothers suffer an auto-immune disease such as Lupus.

Doctors monitored Ms Gardner throughout her pregnancy and at 24 weeks, when the baby's heart rate had gone down to a dangerously low 50 beats per minute, they decided to operate.

Dr Alex Veldman, a neonatologist who was one of three doctors who performed the delicate operation said that it was a difficult procedure because of Taylor’s size.

“It was a very difficult task because of the sheer size of the little baby, she was very, very small,” Dr Veldman told The Times today.

“Her sternum was smaller than a matchstick and her tiny little heart, which we had to suture wires from the pacemaker to, was smaller than a cherry.”

Once doctors had successfully attached the wires to stimulate the heart with electronic signals, Taylor’s heart rate went back up to 120/140. But she was not out of the woods yet. Over the next nine days she endured another three operations for a perforated bowel.

Dr Veldman said that Taylor would stay in hospital for at least another ten weeks, but has recovered remarkably well. When she grows to about 2kg she will be fitted with an internal pacemaker which will enable her to lead a “completely normal life” eventually.

Ms Gardner, who also has a nine-year-old son, had ten other pregnancies before Taylor, so she was desperate to keep her little girl alive.

“It was a bit overwhelming,” Ms Gardner, 30, told The Times from the hospital accommodation into which she has moved from her home in Wodonga, to be closer to her daughter.

“She is so tiny, and it was heartbreaking to see but at the same time it was exciting because she was alive.”

Ms Gardner said that Taylor was a “feisty little fighter” who had charmed everyone who came into contact with her.

“All the doctors and nurses and surgeons just love her,” she said. “She is a total miracle.”

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