TINY Lewis Younger is home in time for Christmas after having a life-saving operation to remove a cyst the size of an orange from his abdomen.

Lewis was still in the womb when doctors discovered problems. He was only five days old when surgeons at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary performed the operation.

Lewis weighed 7lb 4oz when he was born one month premature. When the cyst was removed he weighed just 6lb.

The tiny boy spent nine days in intensive care on a ventilator after the surgery.

But he made a swift recovery and was well enough to go home for Christmas to the joy of his parents, Graeme Younger and Claire Forster.

Delighted Claire, 18, from Gateshead, said: "After the operation it was terrible looking at his tiny body on the ventilator and wondering if he would pull through.

"But now we are just overjoyed and so pleased to have him home. The staff at the hospital were fantastic."

Scans showed there was a problem, and when Lewis was born he underwent a two-hour operation where doctors discovered the abdominal cyst and bowel atresia - a gap in his bowel.

Consultant paediatric surgeon Anne Lawson carried out the surgery to remove the cyst. She said: "It's quite unusual to have a cyst that big in a baby so small. I've never seen one that big before."

The operation was an agonising time for Claire and Graeme, 21, a part-time firefighter.

Graeme said: "You just kept wondering if he was going to come back out."