A baby who was advised to be aborted, has NO genetic disease and has NO life-threatening condition. The medical scans and tests are only indicative and are not 100%. The parents are happy that they did not follow the medical advise to abort twice.
Miracle baby whose mother was told twice by doctors to abort him enjoys his first New Year
31 December 2008.
Before he was born Kai Purdy was written off by doctors as having no chance of survival.
Scans showed he had a life-threatening heart condition and specialists were convinced he had a rare genetic disorder which meant he would probably be stillborn.
His parents twice refused to follow medical advice to consider aborting the pregnancy. But the hospital consultant was so pessimistic about the baby he refused to go ahead with a planned caesarean section six weeks early on ethical grounds.
Yet Kai’s parents wouldn’t give up on him and were determined to give their baby a chance of life.
Their stance defied medical opinion…and they were right.
They pleaded with a doctor at another hospital to operate and he did so after tests indicated the situation was not so bleak after all.
Today Kai is a delightful 10-month-old boy. He is tiny for his age and weighs just 14 lbs, but he is the picture of health and his parents Gaynor and Lee Purdy, a fork life truck driver, believe he will lead a normal life.
Mrs Purdy, 28, of Scunthorpe, North-East Lincs, said:’Little Kai is perfect. We refused to give up on him, and decided throughout the pregnancy that as long as he was fighting, we would continue fighting with him.
‘It is a complete horror to think he may not be here with us. I am so glad we stuck by our guns and, although we did listen to what consultants told us along the way – we decided to do what we wanted to do for our baby.’
A scan carried out 48 hours after Kai’s birth showed the heart problem which almost completely blocked the aortic artery was miraculously correcting itself.
And the earlier tests had already indicated Kai did not after all have Edwards Syndrome – the rare genetic disease which usually kills babies before birth and if not shortly after.
Tests are being carried out to discover if Kai has a chromosome 16 error that is affecting his growth, but his parents are just delighted to have a happy and relatively healthy baby.
Mrs Purdy, a quality inspector, said:’Family and friends often remark on what life would be like if we’d listened to the doctors’ advice.
‘But when we look at our happy and smiling little baby boy we can’t be angry at anyone. We wanted the doctors full and honest opinions so we could be fully prepared for all outcomes.’
The saga began four months into the pregnancy when doctors revealed the unborn child had a heart condition called hypoplastic aortic arch – where part of the heart is narrow and underdeveloped – and would certainly mean open heart surgery once the baby was born.
They were told the condition could worsen and should consider an immediate termination.
The prognosis worsened on New Year’s Eve when tests indicated he also had Edwards Syndrome. Scans had shown clear markers of the condition, a strawberry shaped skull, a low set jaw and low birth weight. Sufferers do not survive beyond four months old – if they manage to survive to birth – and consultants again urged them to consider a termination.
Mrs Purdy said:’We never once considered we could go through an abortion. It was never even an option for us.’
The couple visited a children’s hospice to prepare themselves and even bought a tiny outfit that ‘we may have to say goodbye to him in.’ ‘But we were always determined to meet Kai, if only for a couple of minutes.’
Mrs Purdy was scheduled for a caesarean birth at 34 weeks in a bid to help her baby’s survival. On the day of the surgery at Leeds General Infirmary the consultant said he couldn’t go ahead because of the strong indication of Edwards Syndrome.
As the baby would be terminally ill he concluded it would be safer for the mother’s health and future chance of pregnancy to deliver naturally when she was full term.
The next day they set about persuading the consultant at their local hospital, Scunthorpe General, to operate and give Kai the best hope of some life.
‘Lee took him aside and told him how determined we were to meet our son, if only for a few minutes,’ she said. Mrs Purdy agreed to risk having an amniocentesis test – an invasive and potentially risky test for genetic disorders. It showed the baby did not have the condition doctors feared and they went ahead with the c-section.
‘After everything the consultant gave me a big hug and told me how brave we’d been,’ said Mrs Purdy.
Kai was born on 5 March weighing just 2 lb 6 oz and transferred to the specialist heart unit at LGI where the heart problem was also found to have eased naturally.
She said:’Doctors told us he was a little miracle baby. They said his heart must have been mending itself.’
Kai spent just six weeks in hospital before going home.
‘Seeing him with food smeared all over his little face is a joy we thought we may never see and we will never take him for granted.’
A spokesman from Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Trust said:’While we cannot comment on individual cases due to patient confidentiality in cases where abnormalities are spotted in the scans, our multi-disciplinary team will always offer prospective families the full facts and options as presented at the time.’
