A mother delivered an abnormal baby last morning at Dr Hiren Thumer’s hospital in Gondal in Gujarat. Sonal Waghela who delivered the baby fell unconscious when she saw its face for the first time.

She is not willing to look at its face, as it is deformed and looks like a baby from a different planet.

Sonal Waghela, the baby’s mother, refuses to feed him

Except for Mukesh Waghela, Sonal’s husband, no other relatives were allowed to see the child. The baby is abnormal and its face is larger than its body. Just his head weighs 2.15 kg

The baby is being spoon-fed another woman’s milk, as Sonal is not willing to allow him close to her. The condition afflicting the baby occurs when water accumulates inside the brain.

Dr Thumer said, “The head swells like a balloon because of water accumulation inside the brain and hence the baby looks abnormal. Generally, these types of births occur in one in a lakh deliveries.

Such babies can be saved if brain surgery is conducted, else it dies within four to six months.” However, at present, the baby’s condition is normal.

Every day, Michelle Philpots wakes up next to a man who has to convince her they are married.

When she expresses doubt, he takes out a photo album and shows her pictures of their wedding 13 years ago.

Michelle and Ian on their wedding day in 1997. She lost her short-term memory in 1994 and every day since then he has to convince her they are married. Some days he has to get out the wedding pictures to prove they are husband and wife.

The 47-year-old’s condition was caused by brain injuries sustained in two road accidents. She can recall everything up to 1994 but since then everything that happens on one day is forgotten the next.

Her case echoes 50 First Dates, the 2004 movie in which Adam Sandler tries to woo Drew Barrymore, who has no day-to-day memory following a car crash.

And it is not just loved ones Mrs Philpots struggles with. She uses hundreds of Post-It notes and reminders on her mobile phone’s calendar to keep her informed of appointments and everyday duties.

Anything she has done or anyone she has met must be logged for future reference. And on the rare occasions she ventures out of her home in Spalding, Lincolnshire, she goes armed with sat-nav programmed with her address.

There are some benefits, however. There is no such thing as a repeat on TV and every joke is funny because it’s the first time she’s heard it.

‘It’s like I am living the same day, day after day,’ said Mrs Philpots, who does voluntary work at a charity for people with disabilities three days a week.

‘I love to watch EastEnders but I can’t remember the characters or any story lines.’ Her husband, a 46-year-old fencer, said the secret of the success of their marriage was patience.

‘It can be very frustrating for me but I have to be patient and understand. I have to keep calm because I love her,’ he said.

‘I’ve known her for 25 years so I am lucky we met before she had the accidents because she can remember me. Luckily we have lots of photos to remind her, otherwise she would forget it all.’

Mrs Philpots suffered brain injuries in a motorbike crash in 1985 and a car accident in 1990. The couple have no children.
Enlarge The aftermath of one of the car crashes which caused Mrs Philpots to lose her short term memory

Mrs Philpot’s case is similar to the storyline in the film 50 First Dates, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Her character, Lucy, suffers from short-term memory loss and forgets her love interest Henry, played by Sandler, every day

Dr Peter Nestor, a neuroscience specialist at Cambridge University, said Mrs Philpots was suffering from anterograde amnesia.

He added: ‘It is reasonably rare but it does exist. You are capable of carrying out day-to-day things and don’t forget how to do certain things like speaking.

‘But if someone was to ask you what you did yesterday, you wouldn’t have a clue.’

[Leggi Tutto]

A four-year-old girl dubbed Two-Face by her playmates has had the second of two operations to save her from a lifetime of torment after her mum begged medics for help.

Half of little Tan-Jia’s face was covered with a huge dark birthmark while the other half was completely normal.

“It has been very hard for her because other children can be so cruel and call her names. To make it worse, she has a twin brother who was born completely normal.

“They used to call her Two Face from the Batman film and some said she had been touched by evil,” explained mum Shan Tan from Heilongjiang, northern China, who has to shave hair from her daughter’s birthmark twice a month.

Now the youngster has begun a series of facial reconstruction operations to remove the birthmark in sections and replace it with skin grafts from her tummy – with the second of three operations now complete.

Surgeons at Xinqiao Hospital, in Chongqing, central China, agreed to carry out the ops for free after desperate Shan Tan contacted them about her daughter’s plight.

Dr Lei Lang explained: “It’s very rare to see such a large and severe birthmark, but the patient can be cured through transplants of her own skin.

“After two phases of surgery, she will no longer have a birthmark on her face.

“Although she is a twin she and her brother developed from different embryos and we believe she has been suffering from a genetic mutation of her pigment cells.”

Now mum Shan Tan hopes her daughter’s nightmare will soon be over.

“I was reading her a fairytale about the ugly duckling and she asked me if she was an ugly duckling because everybody said she was ugly and laughed at her. It broke my heart.

“Now she has a chance to be normal,” she said.