Why did 13 scans fail baby Luke?

And his worried parents Tammy Mewett and Peter Willard were demanding to know why his rare heart condition was not picked up in 13 scans before he was born.

Mum Tammy, 23, from Marina, St Leonards, said: "I am fuming they missed such a thing. If I hadn't taken him to the emergency doctor he could have died."

Little Luke was operated on at Guy's Hospital last Thursday for a very rare heart condition, truncus arteriosus, which means he had a hole in the heart, two heart vessels which were joined together and a missing pipe on the heart, said Tammy.

Builder Peter, 28, said: "Both the registrar and the consultant said they were very surprised it wasn't picked up because of the amount of scans '” something like that should have been picked up before he was born."

"It was so rare that the surgeon said he had only operated on three this year," said Tammy.

Eight in 100,000 live births have the condition and with 1,500 births a year at the Conquest it is only likely to show up around every 20 years.

Because Luke was weak due to sickness and breathing difficulties caused by the condition the couple said they were told he had a 50-50 chance of surviving the op.

Tammy said that despite the scans while she was pregnant no problems about the baby's heart were revealed. The 12-week scan showed he was small and could have one leg shorter than the other so the Conquest referred him to St Thomas's which following another scan told them everything was fine but to keep a check on his weight, she said.

After another 11 scans were carried out at the Conquest Luke was born by Caesarean on July 4. Following a few days in intensive care was able to go home. But Tammy soon became worried about his sickness and breathing.

Tammy said: "I took him to the accident and emergency department at the Conquest because he was breathing very fast and being sick and they said he had a stomach upset."

She said that one and a half weeks after Luke came home they called the emergency doctor and took him to an emergency surgery at Hollington where the doctor said he thought Luke had a heart murmur and referred the baby to the Conquest. They were told he had a small hole in the heart at the Conquest appointment two weeks later.

They then had a three weeks wait for an appointment at Guy's which was last Tuesday.

It took one day to get a valve and baby Luke underwent an operation on Thursday. The little baby was on bypass for the operation and spent two days on a respirator.

He remained in intensive care until Wednesday and was expected to be well enough to come home yesterday.

The hospitals said this week that truncus was a very rare condition difficult to diagnose in the womb.

Guy's said that nationally only 10 per cent of truncus arteriosus is diagnosed in this way. Most babies born with truncus arteriosus were stable after birth and many did not show symptoms until they were several weeks old.

"Truncus arteriosus is one of the more difficult heart conditions to diagnose in the womb as the four chambers of the heart look completely normal to the fetal medicine specialist or sonographer carrying out the scan," said a statement.