NEWBORN Daisie Downie has beaten the odds to make it home for her first Christmas after becoming the smallest baby to have a pioneering open-heart surgery procedure to save her life.

Daisie needed the life-saving op when she was born six weeks early with a rare condition that meant there was no blood going to her lungs directly from her heart.

Weighing just 5lb 2oz she was far too small for surgeons to operate and a team of medics began a battle to keep the adorable tot alive.

The longer she had a chance to grow, the better her chance of surviving corrective surgery which would normally be performed on a six to nine month old.

But aged just three weeks her condition became critical and they could delay no longer.

She became the smallest baby to have a revolutionary procedure to repair a hole in her heart and a blocked valve during six hours on the operating table.

The team at Southampton General Hospital are delighted by their groundbreaking feat.

It comes just months after more than 250,000 people backed the Daily Echo’s Have a Heart campaign calling on the Prime Minister to safeguard the hospital’s specialist children’s heart surgery, Ocean Ward.

The unit is at risk of closure under a plan to create fewer, larger centres in England, despite being rated as the second highest performing of the 11 centres under review.

Daisie’s mum Deliah Downie, 34, is overjoyed her miracle baby is doing so well that she made it home in time for Christmas.

Deliah said: “Daisie is my own Christmas miracle. She was so tiny and so critically ill there were times when I feared she would never make it.

“To have her home for a family Christmas and for her to be doing so well is the only present I could have wished for.”

Deliah and her store manager husband Kev, 38, from Whiteley, first learned there was a problem with their baby’s heart at a 20-week scan.

The couple, who have two sons – George, six, and Harrison, three – were told the baby had a hole in her heart and a narrowing of the arteries.

At 34 weeks, a consultant cardiologist found the artery was completely blocked.

But he estimated she would be 10lb by the time she was full term and big enough for them to operate on.

Two days later however, Deliah suddenly went into labour and Daisie arrived six weeks premature on October 29 weighing only a little over 5lb.

She went from intensive care to a cardiac ward where she was put on medication to keep her alive.