Born with a deformed face without ears, misaligned eyes and an unusually wide mouth, baby Loui (British) caused his parents extreme pain.
Baby Loui was born with a rare deformity.
Loui has undergone many surgeries to continue his life.
Staring into her son’s blue eyes, Karly Herriott waited for him to respond with a smile and then gently kissed him on the cheek. “My lovely son!”, she whispered to her 19-month-old son, then gently stroked his blond hair.
For Karly Herriott, now she no longer pays attention to baby Loui’s eyes, deformed face, shapeless ears or unusually small teeth. This 28-year-old mother only sees boundless happiness radiating from her boy’s intelligence, loveliness and humor.
Like many other children, Loui also likes to play with toys and learn to drive a 3-wheeler… but for Karly’s mother, she knows that the road ahead for her and her family is a big battle, the battle to regain a new face. for a 19 month old boy.
Louis when he was born.
Loui is currently 19 months old.
Loui was born with a severe facial deformity caused by a rare genetic disease called Treacher Collins syndrome. Sharing about her pregnancy and birth, this mother said that after 2 weeks past the due date, she and her husband were extremely excited to welcome their baby into the world at Royal Sussex Hospital near their home in Brighton. The birth took place quite quickly, after only 27 minutes on the delivery table and 3 pushes, she welcomed baby Loui into the world.
“Right after he was born, he cried so loudly and I said, “There’s his cry!” then I tried to look at my child’s face but I noticed something different. I asked the midwife but they didn’t have time to answer and rang the alarm. Soon, other doctors and nurses rushed in. While the doctor cut my baby’s umbilical cord, I saw his face clearly and couldn’t imagine what had happened. Even though I still haven’t received any answers, they took him to the intensive care unit because Loui stopped breathing.” , Ms. Karly recounted.
Baby Loui was then given oxygen, but Karly and Luke were not able to see him until the next evening. “That time was terrible. I only saw my child for a moment. We don’t have any pictures of the baby and were only informed by the doctor that the baby has Treacher Collins syndrome. I remember hearing the name of this syndrome in a certain TV documentary a year ago.”
While in the mother’s womb, couple Karly and Luke did not know that their child was deformed.
A few days later, the couple also visited their child and were completely shocked when they officially saw baby Loui. The baby has a large hole in his face – where the ear should be, but there is no ear, the bone in the eye socket is not developed causing the eye to be misaligned, the cheekbones are small, and the thick hair is pulled down the cheek. “I was very scared when I saw that my child was not like I had imagined. I was not informed in advance.”
During pregnancy, because they wanted something unexpected to happen when giving birth, couple Karly and Luke did not have a 4D ultrasound to clearly see the shape and sex of the baby, but only had a regular prenatal checkup. This made them even more shocked when they welcomed the baby.
Because of Treacher Collins syndrome, Loui’s jaw and throat were very narrow, he had serious breathing problems and had to have a tube placed down his throat. In the 3rd week after birth, Loui also had tracheal surgery to place a tube, making breathing easier. In addition, Loui also had to have many other surgeries with nasal and gastric tubes because he couldn’t eat, and wearing hearing aids because he had no external ears…
Loui loves toys like many other friends his age.
The baby is preparing to undergo important surgery to regain his face.
Currently, the boy is 19 months old and after undergoing many surgeries, his health is stable. However, the road ahead is still full of difficulties as the baby’s parents want to have surgery to get their face back.
Karly and Luke have set up an online fund to ask people to donate money for Loui’s upcoming surgery, which costs about $50,000. To date, this fund has raised $38,000 and they hope to soon have enough money to get this little boy’s face back.
In the past, there have been many heartbreaking cases where the fetus had a normal ultrasound but the mother gave birth to a child with a birth defect . Therefore, pregnant mothers need to pay special attention before going for prenatal checkups to avoid this risk.