Mum Recounts How Son Was Born With One Eye After Falling Unexpectedly Out of Her Womb

Victoria Pryor claims her son, Aiden, was born as she walked into her bedroom having taken a hot bath. He fell to the floor, snapping the umbilical cord.

The stunned mother, now 31, revealed she was terrified her child had banged his eye socket as he did not open his eyelid for days, but later tests revealed his left eye was missing altogether, a disorder known as anophthalmia.

Aiden, now four, has worn a number of different prosthetic eyes but is lucky not to have been mentally affected.

According to Mirror UK, Aiden, the couple’s first child, was ten days overdue in October 2010 when Victoria went to hospital with husband Anthony, complaining of labour pains. However, midwives sent her home again, with instructions to take a paracetamol and have a warm bath.

After stepping out of the bath in the middle of the night, Victoria’s pain intensified and she realised the baby was on its way.

The full-time mum said: “I got out of the bath and the pain had grown so much worse. As Anthony phoned the midwives, I started making my way into our bedroom to the bed, as I thought that would be the best place to give birth. But before I could get there, Aiden just came out. There was nothing I could do to stop it. He fell to the floor and the umbilical cord snapped, it was so frightening. The midwife was on the phone, telling us to wrap him up, and the ambulance arrived five minutes later. I was asking them what had happened to his eye and whether he had bumped his head as he fell.”

The following day, Aiden was taken to a specialist eye clinic, where a doctor first suggested that he may be missing his left eyeball.

When Aiden’s eyelid remained closed for the next few weeks, he had an ultrasound which confirmed the diagnosis of anophthalmia.

Victoria said: “We were so shocked when we found out. Even the doctors said it was very rare. To begin with, I was upset because I’d been so healthy during my pregnancy. I couldn’t understand why it had happened to our baby. We came home and I was Googling ‘children with one eye’, but all of these cyclops and aliens were coming up instead. At four weeks old, Aiden was fitted with his first prosthetic eye at the National Artificial Eye Service in Nottingham. It was a clear Perspex piece that he had to wear to help his bone structure to form properly. Some children’s eyes are fused together with anophthalmia so they said Aiden was very lucky and a dream to work with. He had bigger and bigger Perspex pieces fitted until he was 18 months old, then he had a mould made of his eye socket. It was a half sphere, flat on the back but rounded on the front, set in plaster of Paris and filled with wax to create the shape of an eyeball. At this stage he was going to toddler groups and things so it had to be comfortable and sturdy. It was painted to best match his eye colour and he had a new one fitted every six months. We kept them all so we can show him properly when he’s older, but the weight of them started dragging his eyelid down and it got very sore. He didn’t understand what was wrong and we felt so sorry for him.”

In April 2014, doctors recommended an orbital implant a ceramic ball fitted permanently in Aiden’s eye socket, with a thin ‘artificial eye’ disc place on top.

The operation was carried out in August, but was rejected and forced back out.

Victoria said: “It was awful, his eye socket was trying to push it out so he was constantly bleeding. They’d glued his eyelid shut to hold it in, but the glue was wearing off. They tried the same operation again on 1st October and Aiden had his eyelid stitched shut for six weeks. When we went to have the stitches taken out, the consultant explained that it hadn’t worked again and was forcing its way out. They said the best option was a skin graft from his tummy to build up his eye socket, with a disc over the top. Since then, things have been a lot better for him. He had another mould done and we’ll get his new eye fitted in August.”

Anthony, a factory worker, and his dad Steve were both found to carry the gene for anophthalmia and micropthalmia where the eyeball is tiny, often barely visible at all.

Aiden is due to start school in September and Victoria hopes he won’t let his eyesight affect his confidence or social skills.