Baby born with rare defect with her intestines growing outside her body

Millie Woodward was born with a rare defect that caused her intestines to grow outside her body.

Her parents Laura and Adam, 30, learned she had gastroschisis at the 12-week scan.

The diagnosis terrified them, but Millie was born via a planned C-section and within hours her organs were inserted into her body.

Laura, 24, said: “To look at her now, you’d never think she’s been through all of that.

“My whole world stopped when the sonographer told me they were ‘sorry’ – I thought that was it.

“But after the most stressful time of our lives she arrived, and it couldn’t have gone better.

“We’re so proud of her, she’s a beautiful little girl.”

The couple, who already had children Ava, seven, Zachary, five, and Tommy, two, went for a specialist scan to gain more insight into their daughter’s birth defect.

Doctors confirmed she would be born with gastroschisis. Laura said: “They tried to reassure us but it sounded terrifying.

“We were told I didn’t have to continue with the pregnancy if I didn’t want to, but there was no way I wasn’t giving our baby a chance. They told us it was a high survival rate and something that can be fixed – so we just have to hope for the best.”

Millie, now nine months, arrived at 11 minutes past 11 on December 11 last year, weighing 5lb 11oz.

Laura said: “I’ve always thought 11 is a lucky number, even more so now.

“When she arrived they wrapped her exposed organs up in clingfilm and allowed me to hold her for a bit, which was just what I needed after all those months of worry.”

Millie received reversal surgery to insert her small and large intestine into her body, an operation that went “incredibly smoothly” at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool.

Laura, of Clitheroe, Lancashire, added: “You’d never think she’s been through so much. She just has an outie belly button to show for it and is a little smaller than her friends.

“I try not to molly-coddle her but I want to do everything I can to protect her now she’s here. She’s just perfect in every way.”