A three-month-old baby in Northern Italy whose brain descended into his nose was saved by doctors in the first operation of its kind in the world.

The infant was born with nasal myelomeningocele, a rare condition that occurs when the base of the skull doesn’t close properly.

The pathology can cause a small part of the brain to fall inside the nose, which leads to difficulty breathing, according to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

Surgeons at Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin performed the endoscopic operation on the little one — which has never before been performed on a child that young.

At first, doctors wanted to wait until he was at least eight months to conduct the procedure, but because the newborn’s difficulty breathing worsened, they took action sooner.

The surgeons were able to successfully operate by entering the baby’s nose with optical fibers and closing the hole in the skull.

It’s unclear when the procedure was performed.