A method of sheathing a heart including inserting an expandable heart sheath into a living body with the sheath held in a collapsed state. The sheath is released to allow the sheath to expand inside the body. At least a portion of the heart within the body is surrounded by the expanded sheath. The method of forming a custom heart sheath includes determining a three-dimensional outer surface of a particular heart, determining a desired three-dimensional shape of a sheath for the particular heart, as a function of a shape of the determined outer surface of the heart and then forming a custom heart sheath to have the desired three-dimensional shape.
