BABY BORN WITH STOMACH AND INTESTINES INSIDE CHEST SURVIVES

When Holly Flynn’s 20-week baby scan revealed a problem, she was advised to consider a termination.

Her baby, Penny, had a rare defect causing her stomach and intestines to rise up into her chest, crushing her tiny lungs.

Ms Flynn, 25, and her partner Phil Parrott, 32, were told their daughter Penny had just a 50 per cent chance of survival - and told to consider whether they wanted to continue with the pregnancy.

The condition, called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, would leave her lungs severely damaged, they said.

And indeed, when she was born, Penny had only half a working lung and was unable to breathe.

She was immediately connected to a ventilator and whisked off to intensive care.

In a painstaking operation, surgeons moved her organs from her chest cavity into their normal position, and plugged up the gap.

Miraculously, she survived the operation and her tiny lungs started working for themselves so she was able to go home with her parents.

Mr Parrott and Ms Flynn, from Manley, Cheshire, have now released touching photographs of Penny, now three months old, in hospital, to raise awareness of the condition.

Ms Flynn, a music teacher, said: ‘When we found out we tried not to run ahead of ourselves, but there was a possibility that we might not come home with a baby.

‘The first two weeks after we found out dragged and it seemed impossible that we would actually get through the next six months and actually enjoy it.

‘We felt robbed of a normal pregnancy really. We didn’t know whether to go and buy stuff, to paint the room or even tell people about it or just pretend it wasn’t happening.

The pair decided not to abort their child, to give her a chance to survive.

She said: ‘We pulled our chins up - we had made the decision we were going to carry on so we couldn’t just mope about for the next six months.

‘But she was a little fighter and after 28 days in hospital she came home.

‘Looking at her now smiling at me and being so happy it’s hard to believe what she has been through. ‘She’s the bravest person we know.’ Ms Flynn and her partner, who co-own a timber company, were ecstatic to be pregnant, and everything was progressing well until the 20 week scan.

The ultrasound showed a dark mass in their daughter’s lungs which the medic said was her stomach. The couple discovered their unborn daughter had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH).

Doctors explained that her bowel and stomach were in the wrong places, and were crushing her lungs.

They were offered an abortion at 22 weeks, and while they decided against it, refused to buy anything more than the essential baby items in case they ‘jinxed’ the pregnancy.

Ms Flynn said: ‘The doctor said there was a chance I might not make it to the end of the pregnancy because some of these babies don’t and it’s only a 50 per cent survival rate for those that do.

‘I was in tears because I thought “I can’t give birth to a stillborn baby” - that would absolutely destroy me.

‘That was the only bit that makes you think do you want to go through with this or not.