New Delhi: Baby Abdul is like any other one-month-old baby - sleeping peacefully at times, crying in outrage at others - except for the complicated heart surgery the Pakistani infant had to go through when he was just 23 days old.

Says his father, Ali Asghar, "Abdul was bluish at the time of birth. The doctor checked him over in Islamabad and then referred him to a heart physician. His blood was not carrying oxygen to the lungs and he was getting weaker day by day."

Abdul had what is called transposition of great arteries. The two main arteries in the heart, the aorta and the pulmonary artery are transposed or inter-changed, so oxygen-rich blood goes into the lungs, instead of into the body.

Says Paediatric Heart Surgeon, Fortis, Dr Rajesh Sharma, "The red blood keeps circulating in the lungs and the blue blood in body. That's not compatible with life, because the blood is so blue, the body cannot extract enough oxygen. So 90 per cent of babies would be dead by the time they are about three months and the cause of death would be hypoxia or the severe lack of oxygen."

Dr Sharma is the same doctor who operated on the Pakistani baby, Noor Fathema, in 2003. Abdul, apart from the blue blood syndrome, also had a hole in the heart and had to undergo a four hour-operation.

The treatment involves switching arteries back to normal position, so you divide the aorta and the pulmonary artery and you switch them," says Dr Sharma.

Doctors say 10 in 1,000 babies have some sort of heart defect at birth and for the parents, the most critical factor is time.

Babies like Abdul - who are also called blue babies - have to be operated on within 15 days to a month of being born.