Growing Your Baby - Parenthood from Pregnancy to Pre-school » Unusual Baby Stories

Baby Rescued From Running Washing Machine

Lisa — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:49:13 +0000

A 7-month old baby is recovering after being trapped in a running washing machine.

Valle Hernandez was reportedly being pushed in a rolling laundry basket by his 4-year old brother while mom was loading the washer. Then Valle’s big brother pushed him into a front loading machine and the door shut. The boy’s Mom turned away for a split second and when she turned back, didn’t notice the infant mixed in with the dirty clothes. It wasn’t until after she started the machine that she realized the baby was inside. Since front loaders lock when closed, the frantic mom scrambled to get help.

A witness told reporters that the baby was probably in the washer for at least a minute before they got there and it took some serious tugging to get the door open. It took three grown men to pry the door open.

“We got it open and when we got him out of there, I was horrified. He was solid purple from that blood and it was something I hope I never have to witness again.”

The baby was taken to the hospital and has already been released. He is expected to make a full recovery.

WKRG.com News

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World’s Smallest Mother Set To Welcome Third Baby

Lisa — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:19:23 +0000

Despite warnings she is risking her life, Stacey Herald, the world’s smallest mother, is set to welcome her third baby.

Measuring just 2ft 4ins, Mrs. Herald has already defied doctors orders and gone on to deliver to have two healthy baby girls.

The 35-year-old from Dry Ridge, Kentucky, USA, suffers from Osteogenesis Imperfecta, which causes brittle bones and underdeveloped lungs, and means she failed to grow.

Now the determined mom, who uses a wheelchair, and her husband Will, who is 5ft 9ins, are awaiting the birth of their third child, due in the next four weeks.

Even thought she cannot hold her daughter because her belly gets in the way, and she admits being pregnant is “uncomfortable”, the couple says they want more children.

By the time the new addition, a boy, is one he will already tower over his mum.

Stacey and her husband met in 2000 while working for a supermarket in their home town and were desperate for a family after marrying in 2004.

But doctors warned them that a baby would grow so large inside her tiny body it would eventually crush her organs.

“It broke my heart that I couldn’t have kids,” she said.

“All my life my parents had told me that I could do anything. Then there were these doctors telling me that we couldn’t be a complete family. It really hurt.”

Eight months after their marriage, the couple was thrilled to discover they were expecting and decided to go ahead even though family and doctors begged them to reconsider.

After 28 weeks, doctors performed a cesarean section and daughter Kateri was born, weighing just 2lbs and 1oz in 2006.

She grew well but there was heartbreak for the family when they discovered Kateri had inherited Mrs Herald’s condition and would also never grow to a normal height.
Doctors tried to let the second baby stay in Mrs Herald’s body for as long as possible, letting her pregnancy go to 34 weeks before taking her into theatre.

Daughter Makaya who, at 18 inches was more than half her mum’s body length when she was born, weighed 4lbs and 7oz.

Now both girls are bigger than their mother, who is now 30 weeks pregnant with her first boy.

She said: “It’s getting tougher and tougher to move.

“At the moment because I’m getting really big again I can’t hold my youngest daughter because my belly gets in the way and I can’t get my arms around her.”

Mrs Herald added: “All my babies are miracles, but we haven’t thought about if we’re going to have some more, as they’re a real handful right now.

“We didn’t plan to have more than two kids, we just think that they’re a great gift to the world, and when I look at them I see Will and I feel so full of love, it’s tough not to want more.”

I hope that after the baby arrives, this couple just enjoys the three miracles they have. It would be foolish for them to keep testing the laws of nature.

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Father Fights Mother Over Baby’s Right To Live

Lisa — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:01:11 +0000

A baby’s right to life has put his parents on opposing sides in a British court over whether to switch off the child’s life support.

The father took the case to court to stop his wife and doctors from disconnecting the baby’s respirator.

The child’s life is “miserable, sad and pitiful,” lawyers for the hospital said in court Monday.

They say the child’s lungs fill with fluid every few hours — giving him the sensation he is choking — and that doctors must then use suction to remove the fluid, also causing the child to suffer.

The father says the baby can play and recognize its parents. His lawyers plan to show videos of the baby in court to demonstrate he responds to the world around himself.

The baby’s parents are amicably separated, the father’s lawyer said.

Due to privacy, he is only known as RB. He is about one year old and suffers from congenital myasthenic syndrome, a rare genetic condition which means he cannot breathe on his own.

“It causes severe muscle weakness, feeding and respiratory problems, and the disease is progressive,” the hospital said in a statement.

The hospital says it is doing what is best for the child.

“Baby RB’s case is a deeply tragic one,” the hospital said in a statement. “We understand how difficult this legal process must be for both parents and RB’s extended family and friends. However, all those involved in the care of RB are taking these steps because they consider it is in RB’s best interests.”

The baby has been taken off its artificial respirator at least three times, lawyers for the hospital said.

The first time he was able to breathe unaided for 40 minutes. The second time he lasted 30 minutes, and the third time only five minutes before he had to be reconnected to the ventilator, they said.

A new doctor, appointed by court, has been asked to evaluate whether a tracheostomy would help the baby. The operation involves cutting a hole in the infant’s throat to help it breathe.

Lawyers for the Hospital said this doctor’s advice “could change the entire pattern of the case”.

The Mayo Clinic, one of the leading hospitals in the United States, says on its Web site that

“different forms of CMS vary widely in their symptoms, from mild to severely disabling. With accurate diagnosis and appropriate therapy, even potentially fatal forms can usually be treated successfully.”

I applaud this father. If this baby can be trached, he could go on to live a full, meaningful life. Doctors always give the worst scenario. They told me my son would never walk or talk. As a parent you have to force them(the doctors) to do more.

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Memory Loss Causes Mom To Forget Her Baby Every Couple Days

Shannon — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:14:37 +0000

Like a scene from 50 First Dates, Karen Wilkinson-Wigham, 37, needs to keep a “mummy diary” so she can look back on it and remember the baby that she forgets giving birth to.

Karen has short term memory loss and every few days forgets what has happened prior. This diary ensures that she will not forget anything about her baby George and his life growing up.

‘My diary is so important to me because when George is older and asks me questions he will have everything written down for him.’
She added: ‘It is also helps me too.’

On Christmas Day in 2005 Karen began feeling ill and was suffering from severe migraines. A few days later she fell into a coma where doctors told her family that if she did awake, she would be left in a vegetative state. However, Karen amazed them and came out with only short-term memory loss.

During the following months, Karen focused on learning how to walk again and re-establishing her relationship with her fiance Brian all over again.

Despite the almost full recovery, Karen was given the devastating news that she never get to be a mom. Just before she was due to have a hysterectomy, an ultrasound revealed that she was actually 20 weeks pregnant.

‘I was terrified it was cancer at first, so we were so elated it was a baby and were were out straight away buying baby clothes and all sorts for him.’

Just a few short days before the baby was supposed to be born an ultrasound had revealed that their baby boy Joshua had passed away.

Shortly after Karen became pregnant again, but sadly her second child, Georgia, who was born still.

Karen said: ‘I can’t recall much about it but I feel sick because the emptiness and pain at such a terrible loss are still there.’
Last year, when Karen became pregnant again, she began writing down when she felt her baby kick and had scans when she could not remember the last time she felt movement.

The happy couple were blessed with the birth of baby George last month weighing a healthy 7lbs.

Karen said: ‘After so many nightmares, I can’t believe Brian and I have a healthy baby. The diary will help me remember.
‘I have a strong Christian faith and a wonderfully supportive family – my mum is constantly at my side helping me care for George.’

She added: ‘Now, I don’t let it all get me down. Instead, I feel lucky I’m alive and have been blessed with such a beautiful baby.’

I cannot even imagine what it would be like to forget your child every few days. To not remember things that are so special and important. She is an amazing woman!

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The Baby Who Can’t Cry

Shannon — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:39:23 +0000

When Jody Woods and Joshua Sutterfield welcomed their baby boy Devon on October 19th, they knew something wasn’t right.

“Right when he came out he was squeaking when he cried. We thought he might have a little something that they didn’t suction out,” said Sutterfield, 24, of Cullman, Ala.

After some tests and x-rays the doctors came to dad with some bad news. Baby Devon had paralyzed vocal chords. The squeaky noise that was heard upon his birth is actually something called stridor, which is like the sound of air whistling through a blocked airway.

Vocal cords, or vocal folds as doctors call it, affect how we speak, breathe and swallow – they close to let us swallow, they narrow to let us speak and open to let us breathe, explained Dr. Steven Goudy, assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Because you do have two vocal folds it could be one not working or both of them not working,” said Goudy. “We see it several times a year, but it is still very rare.”

Devon’s dad says that when he tries to cry it causes him to have breathing problems, sometimes turning him blue.

“The further it goes the less cry you hear,” said Sutterfield. “When he’d cry — he’d cry so hard that he’d lose oxygen.”

As of right now the doctors do not know what caused the paralysing of Devon’s vocal chords. This occurs to one in one million babies that are born. Unfortunately Devon’s parents have learned that this can be life threatening.

Devon is in hospital so that he can receive oxygen as he needs it and so the doctors can try and figure out how to treat him. The biggest issue is making sure that he is okay eating and breathing. If issues do arise then baby Devon will most likely need a tracheotomy.

Doctors say that between 35 and 50 % of these cases can be explained. There are many different disorders of the brain that could explain why this happened as well as a possible congenital heart problem, or even nerve damage at birth.

Yet roughly half of all children with paralyzed vocal folds are classified as having congenital vocal fold paralysis — meaning there’s no known reason for it, according to Hartnick. “Around 60 percent of the time these children will recover in the first year of life,” he said. In those cases, the damaged nerves leading to the vocal fold either slowly repairs itself or whatever was blocking the nerve is remediated.

I hope that doctors are able to figure out why Devon’s vocal chords are paralyzed and treat him as easily as possible! – Shannon, Staff Writer

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Baby Arrives Prematurely on Board AirAsia Flight

Lisa — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:40:07 +0000

There was some excitement on board an AirAsia flight last night, when a baby arrived just 30 minutes after the aircraft left Bayan Lepas Airport in Penang.

Liew Siaw Hsia, a 31-year-old waitress from Taiping, took the flight from Penang last night when she was just 27 weeks pregnant, a week shy of the recommended travel ban for pregnant mothers.

When she boarded the flight, she said that there was already some discomfort.

But 20 minutes into the journey, she started feeling contractions and the flight crew immediately made an emergency diversion to Kuala Lumpur.

“When I started feeling a lot of pain, I was still too nervous to ask for assistance. It was when I couldn’t take it anymore that I asked the passenger beside me for help,” said Liew.

She said that the flight attendants tried to calm her down and to hold on from giving birth, but the pain was too unbearable.

“They immediately asked the other passengers sitting around me to move elsewhere, and asked for a doctor on the PA system,” she said.

On the flight was Dr Ronald Tang, another passenger, who quickly volunteered his services to the nervous mother while the cabin crew held her hand throughout the entire ordeal.

The new baby is the first infant to be born aboard and AirAsia Airplane. To commemorate the big event, the company announced that they will provide a lifetime of free flights to both Liew and her son to all destinations.

Earlier this week another new mom needed to be airlifted after delivered her baby arrived 3 months early on a car ferry.

UPDATE: 25 Weeker Fitted With An External Pacemaker

Lisa — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:22:03 +0000

In July, we introduced you to Taylor Gardner. This amazing little girl was born at 25 weeks weighing just 540 grams.

A 19 week ultrasound revealed Taylor had a complete heart block found in 1 in 200,000 babies.

At that time her mother Rebecca Gardner was put on bedrest so that her pregnancy could be monitored.

“It was heart-wrenching, but I wanted her to survive because she is my 11th pregnancy and I only had one child,” Ms Gardner said.

Nine hours after she was born, doctors connected her tiny heart, which was half the size of a cherry, to an external pacemaker that was bigger than her entire body.

Although only a handful of premature babies in the world had ever been fitted with an external pacemaker, and none less than 750g, Dr Alex Veldman said surgeons had no other choice but to rewrite history.

Five months later, Taylor’s external pacemaker has been replaced with a permanent internal pacemaker and she has gained several kilograms, weighing a relatively healthy 2.7 kilograms.

The next steps for this miracle baby will be to withdraw her respiratory support and increase normal feeding so she can go home in coming months, he said.

Taylor’s mother, Rebecca Gardner, said she cried tears of happiness when she saw Taylor emerge from surgery last week without wires connected to her heart. Among other things, it meant she could hold her baby more freely.
”If she’s home for Christmas I’ve already told people that I will put a bow on her and put her under the Christmas tree. She will be my Christmas present.”

I am so happy for this family. I hope that the doctors are able to wean Taylor from the vent in time for her to be home for the Holidays.

It is amazing that she has been able to survive being born so early and having a heart condition. This is one determined little girl.

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California Toddler Survives 30-foot Fall Onto Rocks

Lisa — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:38:43 +0000

A lucky California toddler is alive after falling 30 feet from an apartment window and landing on concrete and rocks.

Contra Costa County Fire Capt. Charles Thomas says the 22-month-old boy was alert and crying after the three-story plunge yesterday that left him with just a cut on his abdomen, a bruised lung and a bump on his head.

He appeared to have climbed onto a table near an open window and fell after pushing against the screen. He landed on concrete and a bed of rocks.

Doctor said that because the toddler was so young, his bones have not fully developed and are maliable. This may have helped him ‘bounce’ causing a better outcome.

Other Amazing Toddlers:

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Coast Guard Rescues 28 Week Baby Born On A Ferry

Lisa — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:24:16 +0000

A car ferry in the English Channel headed for Spain was the scene of an exciting airlift this morning after a baby girl arrived much early than planned..

The tiny baby was born at just 28 weeks in the early hours of the morning aboard the Pride of Bilbao.

Shorty after the surprise delivery mom and baby were winched from the vessel by the coast guard and taken to airport before being transferred to the Hospital.

Before the baby arrived, the new parents were on vacation. Dad will have to remain onboard until the ferry reaches Spain tomorrow morning.

The baby girl, who had breathing difficulties at birth, is now in intensive care.

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Big Baby Denied Health Insurance

Shannon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:59:06 +0000

Bernie and Kelli Lange of Colorado are the parents of a beautiful and healthy baby baby boy named Alex. They were recently shocked to find out that their son was denied health insurance by Rocky Mountain Health Plan because the company considered him to be “too fat”. Apparently, he fell into their high risk category because of his above average weight.

Baby Alex falls into the 99th percentile with his height and weight for his age group. He is four months old and weighs 17lbs and is 25 inches long.

Rocky Mountain insurance underwriters said that it was industry standard to deny coverage to new patients above the 95th percentile. They said the rule includes babies but this was the first time they had ever actually rejected one.

After a bit of media attention, brought on by the fact that Alex’s dad is a part-time news anchor, Rocky Mountain announced they had changed their minds and agreed to give him coverage.

The crazy part of all of this, is that baby Alex is exclusively breastfed, which is the healthiest and most nutritious way to feed a baby.
Dad Bernie said:

I could understand if we could control what he’s eating, but he’s 4 months old. He’s breastfeeding. We can’t put him on the Atkins diet or on a treadmill. There is just something absurd about denying an infant [coverage].”

The couple had been seeking new insurance because the plan they had went up by 40 percent after Alex’s arrival. The medical director for Rocky Mountain insurance, Doctor Doug Speedie, later admitted the system is flawed.

“It’s possible for a baby to be above the 95 percentile and still be healthy”

To be denied health coverage because your baby is in the 99th percentile is very absurd to me. Add to this that the baby is ONLY breastfed and it makes this whole story even more crazy.

I am glad that all this media attention helped them to get the coverage that they deserve for Alex. – Shannon Strohm, Staff Writer

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