Mother refuses to have an abortion
For baby Jacob Reed, the odds of survival were low. His mother was warned that he had only a 3 percent chance of living after birth according to the Mail Online. Doctors “told his mother Pippa Stanley, 26, that she should abort him a dozen times.” Baby Jacob survived the poor prognosis and after spending six months in hospital after birth, went home with his mother and father. A joyous homecoming, it was!
Pippa Stanley said, “The doctors all said he had no hope at all- but now he’s home.” She had been pregnant with twins, but at 12 weeks into the pregnancy, it was found that one of the twins had died. At 16 weeks, Pippa faced another complication. Her amniotic fluid was leaking which would affect the development of her child’s lungs.
The 25th week of her pregnancy brought yet another difficulty. Ms. Stanley had to be admitted to a hospital in Oxford which handles premature births. Again, the doctors recommended abortion because they believed baby Jacob “would be deformed and would struggle to live outside the womb” if he survived.
Baby Jacob made his entry into the world on February 29 weighing 2lb and 10 oz. He was able to breathe on his own. A few weeks after his birth, Jacob was diagnosed with an extremely rare condition with the name internal and external juvenile xanthogranulomatosis (JXG) affecting only one in 3.5 million children.
The Mail Online tells us that JXG is a condition “which is normally benign, causes multiple orange coloured lesions to appear on the skin and without treatment can cause glaucoma and blindness. However, in Jacob’s case, the lesions were also growing inside his body, attacking his blood, bones, lungs and liver and causing jaundice.”
Five surgeries were performed as well as dialysis. Through it all, Jacob made remarkable progress.
When Jacob was well enough to go home, he weighed half the normal weight for his age.
His mother said, “Having him home is like winning the lottery but 10 times better. He is gorgeous.”
Source: Mail Online, September 11, 2012. Miracle baby given just a 3% chance of survival at birth amazes doctors by heading home six months later.
