A two-and-a-half-year-old child born with a rare congenital condition that left him without a functional oesophagus has begun eating through his mouth after undergoing a complex reconstructive procedure at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, marking another successful outcome for the hospital's paediatric surgery department, hospital officials said on Sunday.
 
The child, Mantavya, son of Shailesh Patel of Sanand in Ahmedabad district, was born on November 7 in 2023, with Pure Oesophageal Atresia, a rare birth defect in which the two ends of the oesophagus are too far apart to form a continuous food pipe.

Because of the condition, he was unable to swallow milk or food by mouth from birth.