A newborn boy at the center of a high-profile custody dispute between his biological parents and their surrogate mother underwent the first of three scheduled open-heart surgeries on Monday, according to legal representatives for the parties.
The child, named Rumi by his parents, was born August 12 in Texas with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital defect in which the left side of the heart fails to develop properly. Without intervention, the condition stops normal blood flow and can cause death within days or weeks, according to data from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
