Baby Born Without A Brain Amazes Doctors By Celebrating His 2nd Birthday

For any mother, hearing their baby’s first word is a momentous occasion. But for Emma Murray, it was a moment she thought would never happen with her youngest child Aaron.

When the two-year-old said ‘Mummy’, Emma, from Lanarkshire, Scotland, said it seemed like a miracle as her son was born with only the tiniest part of a brain.

Just minutes after giving birth in 2013, Emma, 24, was told by doctors that Aaron had a very rare health condition known as holoprosencephaly which they said left him ‘incompatible with life’.

Aaron was born with only a brain stem – which allows him to breathe and move – but does not have a full brain.

Emma was advised to invite her closest family to the hospital to meet her newborn boy before he passed away.

But more than two years on, Aaron is not only alive but enjoys giggling and clapping his hands with his big brother, Jack, aged three.

Aaron has amazed doctors so far with his survival – and the family were stunned when a few weeks ago, Aaron said ‘Mummy’ for the first time.

Emma said: ‘When Aaron was first born, I was told there was no way he could survive. I was told he might live for three minutes, three hours or three days.

‘The doctors told me if it had been any of his other organs which had failed to grow, they would have been able to do something but they couldn’t grow him another brain.

‘But right from the very beginning, Aaron proved he is a real fighter.

‘And I was saying “mummy” to him recently and clapping my hands and he was giggling away.

‘He looked at me, and said “mummy”. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been told my son would only live for a few minutes, but now here he was saying ‘mummy’ which is something I never thought I would ever hear.’

Aaron was born in March 2013 after Emma was rushed to hospital with what she thought was a burst appendix.

She said: ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was in labour.