Toddler Makes Miraculous Recovery After Been Born With Tiny Amount Of Brain Tissue

A couple have described the survival of their son born with a tiny amount of healthy brain tissue as a miracle.

The Daily Mail reports:

Michelle Wall, 43, and her husband Rob, 50, were warned their unborn son Noah, now three, was unlikely to survive as he had developed hydrocephalus. This is a build-up of fluid in his skull that destroyed all but two per cent of his brain.

Mrs Wall discovered three months into her pregnancy that baby Noah had a catalogue of health problems. These included spina bifida  a condition where the spine does not develop properly, leaving a gap – rare chromosome abnormalities and hydrocephalus.

She was offered terminations by doctors, who were so convinced Noah wouldn’t survive that the couple underwent the devastating task of buying a coffin for their son.

But against the odds, at a check-up last week, Noah, three shocked doctors after scans showed his brain had almost full function.

Mrs Wall, from Abbeytown, Cumbria, said: ‘We just cannot believe it, he’s a miracle. No one expected this to happen. We’ve had three years not knowing how long he’s going to live so to hear his brain’s almost back to normal is beyond belief. Rob and I broke down when we heard the news, it was like a dream. I’ve never known anything like it – even the consultants were in tears.

‘Nobody knows how or why Noah’s recovered. It’s baffling but of course we’re over the moon. I think it’s down to his independence from such a young age. He’s had a specialised wheelchair from the age of one so he’s had as much independence as most children. That independence has helped his brain. He’s always made his own decisions and he’s such a smiley, happy little boy. We couldn’t be happier.’

Claire Nicholson, Noah’s consultant neurosurgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, said: ‘Spina bifida is commonly associated with a build-up of fluid inside the brain: this is often diagnosed on antenatal scans, as it was with Noah.

‘Noah had severe hydrocephalus and the pressure of the fluid caused Noah’s brain to be squashed – hence the scans showed that the overall volume of his brain was greatly reduced.

‘Treating the hydrocephalus after Noah was born relieved the fluid build-up and restored the pressure to normal. The MRI carried out last week shows that Noah’s brain has made a ‘truly remarkable’ recovery, she added.

She said: ‘The scan demonstrates that Noah’s brain is now close to normal size for his age – which is a radical change from his antenatal and immediate postnatal scans. How this happens is not fully understood but it is likely that the small volume of brain we see in cases like this is due to pressure on a compressible structure so the relief of pressure by shunt insertion allows the brain to expand to its natural size.

Doctors also told the couple that the condition had left a massive hole in Noah’s back which they said they would be unable to stitch up.

During the pregnancy, the couple were regularly offered a termination but they stood firm, adamant that their son deserved the chance to live.

Noah was born on March 6th 2012 and was paralysed from the chest down.

Mrs Wall said: ‘The first thing we heard when he was born was him taking a breath and then crying. We’d almost been told to give up hope so to see him crying and looking up at me was just amazing. I’ll never forget it, to hear that his brain’s almost back to normal was just as special.’

Noah was allowed home after ten days in hospital but due to several emergencies has had to return to hospital on many occasions since then.

The space left by the brain in Noah’s head was filled by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) which is drained regularly by a fitted shunt.

The fluid became infected when Noah was seven weeks old and he had the shunt removed, allowing two and a half litres of fluid to be drained manually using a needle in his head.

The shunt was then replaced and the shape of Noah’s head is now closely monitored, by his second birthday, Noah was talking and singing like other toddlers.

Mrs Wall said the family were trying to make day to day life as normal as possible. She said: ‘He is potty training now and he knows if he uses the potty then he gets chocolate. It is amazing that he understands what it is and what he is supposed to do.

‘He can also use a fork, spoon and a cup by himself. He knows a lot of different animals and will tell you to put the light on or off or to open the door. He chooses things and makes decisions. He never shuts up and he can sing as well.

Noah requires constant supervision and has to be massaged five times a day as well as undertaking regular sessions of physiotherapy and hydrotherapy.