A one-year-old baby who had a stroke in her mother’s womb has suprised her parents by talking, crawling, and clapping.
Naomi Kretschmer was born with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, paralysis on the right side of her body, and damage to the left side of her brain.
When her mother, Melanie Kretschmer, was eight months pregnant, she noticed Naomi wasn’t moving. They went to a nearby hospital in Marshfield, Wisconsin and within an hour she was put under anesthesia for an emergency C-section.
“From day one, everything for Naomi was an unknown,” Melanie told the newspaper. “We didn’t know if she‘d sit up by herself. We didn’t know if she’d be able to walk with or without assistance.”
“They just told me she needed to be born and born urgently,” she told the newspaper.
Several hours later the mother found out from doctors that her baby had not been breathing and she had to be resuscitated.
When Naomi was four days old, doctors confirmed that she had a stroke that caused the right side of her body to be paralyzed.
Neurologists say she will probably never outgrow seizures, the Mail reported. Naomi was reportedly having seizures three to four times a day, but now at 19 months old, she has several a month.
Doctors were not sure if she was ever going to speak, but she has started saying some words like “mama” and “dada,” her parents said.
“She is sitting up by herself, scoots all around the house and goes down the stairs and recently started clapping,” her mother said.
The Marshfield News Herald reported that Melanie was in shock when she saw her daughter crawling.
“Oh my God, are you crawling?” Melanie said, “She never does this!”
The Kretschmer family have medical insurance that covers most of their daughter’s care, but know that many in their position are not as lucky.
Melanie is a full time carer for her baby daughter. Inspired by her own experiences, she set up a nonprofit called Naomi’s Needs for Peds to raise funds for families who have children with disabilities.
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