NEW DELHI, Oct. 31 -- In a medical feat carried out for the first time in India, doctors at a hospital in the southern city of Hyderabad claimed to have reportedly performed a heart surgery on a foetus in a 25-year-old woman's womb, local media reported Friday.

The doctors at Care Hospital said that they had to perform the heart surgery on the foetus to correct a serious condition that has no cure once the baby is born.

"At 25-26 weeks, the left ventricle started deteriorating, getting damaged and shrinking. We realized this is going to be a serious condition where the left side of the heart will be too small and not useful and it won't be possible to perform surgery after birth," K. Nageswara Rao, the cardiac surgeon, told the media.

He added "so we decided to go for this procedure called foetal aortal volvotomy."