Baby Born With Giant Tongue Has Successful Surgery Then Learns To Speak

As a new parent, we try to do everything possible to protect our little ones. However, there is only so much we can do as a mother or a father, and nothing is more painful than seeing your little one suffer and not being able to help.

Much like this little newborn who suffered from a debilitating skin condition, the Godfreys of Pewaukee, Wisconsin, were heartbroken when their new baby Rory began choking while he ate and having trouble breathing at night.

“As soon as I heard him choke and gasp for air I knew something was horribly wrong, but was reassured he was fine,” Holly Godfrey told Daily Mail.

Doctors diagnosed Rory with sleep apnea, but Holly knew something else was wrong. “I kept pushing for more tests to be done and eventually we were referred to a geneticist, where he was diagnosed with BWS. I suppose it was just mother’s intuition,” Holly said.

Rory was next diagnosed with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, just like the newborn baby in this story, an overgrowth condition of various parts of the body. In this case, baby Rory’s tongue had been growing to the point where he was choking on it nearly 100 times a day.

“It got to the point where he could touch his nose without trying and his mouth was always in an open position because his tongue was so large,” Holly said. “He would gasp and choke while feeding and then while he slept I could hear him snore and stop breathing. It was quite a frightening time.”

The only answer was reduction surgery for Holly and husband Ben’s tiny son. “Every night I heard him struggle for air and was too scared to go to sleep in case I woke up to a blue baby who had died during the night.”

Doctors cut a “W” shape into the baby’s tongue before stitching it back together. Today Rory is 14 months old and in recovery from the dangerous surgery. A far cry from this time last year, Rory has now been able to use his tiny tongue to say his first words: “mama”.

“He’s so happy now, he’s more vocal than he was before and has definitely compensated for the sounds he couldn’t make before.” The family has shared their baby’s frightening story in hopes of helping other parents who were given misdiagnoses. “We’ve been on quite the rollercoaster but now hopefully we are out the other end of it.”

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[Featured Image: Caters News Agency via Daily Mail]

Baby Born With Giant Tongue Has Successful Surgery Then Learns To Speak is an article from: LifeDaily