MUM’S PLEA FOR BOY WHO

HE’S fought more battles than most people do in a lifetime and he’s not yet two years old.

Theo Hutton came back from the dead seven minutes after being stillborn when his brain was starved of oxygen.

The harrowing birth has left him with cerebral palsy and he is unable to sit, walk or talk.

But despite his ordeal, Theo always has a big, beaming smile and his parents Laura and Andy reckon he is the happiest little boy around.

Now the couple want to improve his chances in later life by raising £100,000 for various treatments abroad.

They include pioneering stem cell surgery – not yet available on the NHS – in Panama.

This has l ed t o huge improvements in other children who suffer from the incurable and crippling condition.

And the couple are convinced it will massively enhance Theo’s quality of life.

Mum Laura, 29, said: “The treatment aims to stimulate stem cell growth in the brain.

Chance

“At the moment he can’t co- ordinate movement in his arms but this could improve. Or he could learn to talk.

“It will be small steps, but each one would be a huge step for us.”

The procedure would see 35 millions stem cells from a donor umbilical cord injected into Theo’s system to stimulate and repair damaged nervous tissue in the brain.

Laura and Andy hope to take him to the Stem Cell Institute in Panama City once a year for the next five years.

Each course of treatment would cost around £16,000 but they say it could massively improve the youngster’s life, helping him achieve milestones they can only dream of at the moment.

Laura, a health and safety manager f r om Wi r r a l , Merseyside, said: “Around 90 per cent of your brain is developed by the time you are five years old, so we would like to get the first three treatments in by then so they would have the most benefit.

“There’s the cost of the treatment for Theo and we’d also need to cover the costs of us taking him over there to look after him.”

An estimated

30,000 children in t he UK have cerebral palsy.

Some have had successful stem cell treatment and the couple hope the same will happen for

Theo.

Holly Greenhow, from