A baby who suffered a stroke just days after he was born has amazed doctors with his recovery.
Tom Lavelle couldn’t breathe unaided and medics feared he would not survive. But the little boy, born at St Thomas’ hospital, has just celebrated his first birthday thanks to pioneering therapy.
His mother Ellie, 30, and lawyer father Joe, 31, were warned Tom would struggle to move the right side of his body. But he has proved the experts wrong with the aid of extensive treatment at Evelina London Children’s hospital, the only NHS unit of its kind in the country offering stroke rehabilitation for children.
Tom can now pick up his favourite toys with his right hand and hold them. Mrs Lavelle said: “It’s a miracle that Tom has got to this stage.”
Strokes, when blood to the brain is cut off or interrupted, do not just affect older people — at least 400 children and babies suffer one each year in the UK.
