Saturday 30 November 2013

Miracle babies

              
Three years old Kaydence Theriault  and her fellow triplets Taylor and Kaylin were all born with Crouzon Syndrome, which causes a baby's head to become misshapen.Kaydence had the most severe form doctors had ever seen because her skull was shaped like a cloverleaf. The toddler has had to undergone pioneering surgery to prevent her brain from being squashed. 
Most children born with the condition have surgery before they are 18 months old to separate the skull before it fuses but Kaydence's condition was so severe the bones were already joining together, pushing her head into an odd shape at the top and sides, like a three-leaved clover.
Mrs Theriault and her eldest son Jayden, eight, also have Crouzon Syndrome, which Mrs Theriault inherited from her father. But each of them has a milder form and underwent small operations just before they were one. Kaydence on the other hand,needed emergency surgery to open up her skull at two months old, as soon as she was strong enough, so her brain would have room to grow.Three months later, a team of expert surgeons came together at Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis to perform a delicate operation to reshape her head. World famous cranio-facial surgery Dr Kenneth Salyer, from Texas, was brought in to help with the surgery, which took place in May 2010 and lasted eight-and-a half hours. Neurosurgeon Dr Ronald Young said: 'The only way to reshape the head is to take that bone apart and put it back together in a different shape and that's what we did.'
The other two of the triplets Taylor and Kaylin, who had a milder form of Crouzon, underwent their surgeries at seven months old and are also doing well.
'We're so happy they can all have a normal life," said the parents. We love those doctors for what they have done for our family.

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