It might look like a glowing egg from an alien world, but this red ovoid is actually human womb containing a baby, removed from its mother before birth, in a groundbreaking operation.

Doctors in the US have been pioneering an astonishing new treatment for spina bifida in which the baby is operated on before birth.

Spina bifida occurs when a baby’s spine and spinal cord do not develop properly causing a gap in the spine. It affects 24 babies in 100,000 and there are 14,000 people living with the condition in Britain which leaves sufferers unable to walk, with fluid buildup in the brain, lack of bladder control and other complications.

Foetal surgery for spina bifida has been common since the 1990s, but trying to repair the spine while the baby is still inside its mother is fraught with difficulty and cutting into the womb risks premature birth.

Now Dr Michael Belford, of Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, Texas, has developed a new technique to remove the baby and womb so that spinal defect can be fixed before amniotic fluid eats away further at the gap in the spinal nerve tissue.