A five-month-old baby girl is facing a race against time to have surgery to correct her deformed nose which could stop her breathing.

Shanti’s parents have been unable to afford medical help for their daughter, until kind-hearted strangers have helped by donating to their appeal.

Medics say the child’s rare deformity, where extra flesh has caused an obstruction to her nostril, could be fatal if she gets a common cold.

Her parents Sushila Bedi and Kundan Ram, from New Delhi, India, have been told the operation will cost 500,000 rupees (£5,490) – a sum they cannot pay for themselves on their 9,000 rupee (£98) monthly earnings.

Through crowdfunding, the couple have raised half of the money needed and doctors have agreed to go ahead with the operation. It was scheduled to be carried out last week but had to be postponed when Shanti caught a cold and had difficulty breathing.

Now her desperate mother and father are hopeful that it will take place in the next few days.

Kundan said: “My baby can breathe only with one nostril. When she catches a cold, she can’t breathe at all. Sometimes, by looking at her, it is difficult to say if she is alive. Every time this happens, we skip a heartbeat.”

When she was six months pregnant, Sushila, 20, noticed that Shanti, the couple’s first child, sometimes moved abnormally in her womb. But doctors did not suspect the baby had a severe condition, until after she was born.

Kundan, 24, from Rithala in the outskirts of the city, said: “While our relatives and friends keep telling us, ‘What will people say about a girl born with such a weird deformity?’, I don’t understand how will I even be bothered about this if she doesn’t live.

“When Shanti was born, her condition wasn’t this grave as it is now. With every passing day, she can barely breathe. Although she doesn’t cry much and is a happy baby, we are scared that the happiness that our bundle of joy has brought, will be snatched away from us.”

Kundan, the sole bread winner for his family, is a packer in a small ration shop. As well as his wife and baby, he has his parents and two younger siblings in Bihar dependant on him. He said his income has been affected by caring for his daughter.

“Shanti is so small that we can’t even take her on a bus or train to the hospital,” he said. “Every time we have to go to the hospital, I spend 400 rupees only on travel. The visits to the hospital are becoming more frequent. I have to take off at work more often now which is resulting in reduced income. My baby is so sick that it is difficult to concentrate on work. I don’t want to leave her alone even for a while, but I am forced to leave her to save her.”

Sushila says being a first-time mother, seeing her baby struggling to breathe makes her feel guilty.

Kundan added: “Not only that we have very few relatives and friends, the ones that we have are also not well off. They are ready to help us with 500 to 1000 rupees, but that is not enough to save out little baby. All Sushila and I want is that our baby can live.”

A spokesperson for Milaap.org, India’s largest crowdfunding website, said all its fundraisers are verified. She explained that in certain situations when the need for surgery is urgent, doctors in the country can decide to go ahead with the surgery and expect the funds to be cleared afterwards.