Doctors use advanced system to save newborn's life

A newborn boy has survived a life-threatening congenital defect at a hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, after receiving support using a technique known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for a record 40 days.

The baby was diagnosed with a hernia of the diaphragm, or CDH, at Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center in the 23rd week of his mother's pregnancy.

The condition involves a malformation of the diaphragm that allows abdominal organs to push into the chest cavity, hindering proper lung formation, according to Zhong Wei, director of the center's neonatal surgical department.