Hours after her son’s birth, Vickie Thompson made a “petrifying” discovery when she looked in his diaper for the first time: his urine appeared green.
- Charlie was born without an anus. This malformation prevented the little boy from passing his stools. Additionally, his urine appeared unusually green.
- The baby’s life was in danger. The doctors decided to give him a stomach wash and then give him an emergency stoma.
- Since his birth in August 2022, the little boy has had 6 operations. Doctors believe he may need an ostomy for life.
August 12, 2022, Vickie Thompson36, gave birth to a little boy named Charlie. A few hours after the birth, which had gone smoothly, the young mother realized that she was unable to wake her baby. Another very worrying fact, when looking in her diaper, she noticed that there was no stool and that his urine had a green tint.
Baby without anus and green urine: “I was petrified”
Faced with this strange discovery and the amorphous state of her son, the thirty-year-old British woman began to be very afraid. “I was absolutely petrified… I thought he was dying”she remembers when questioned by the Daily Email.
The doctors quickly understood the causes of little Charlie’s problems: he was born without an anus. This congenital anomaly, called anal imperforation, therefore did not allow him to expel the “waste” present in his intestines after digestion and toxins began to spread throughout his body.
To save the baby, doctors performed gastric lavage and inserted a stoma (opening on the abdomen connected to a piece of the intestine allowing the evacuation of stools into a pouch). “I kept thinking he was going to die. I kept thinking the worst.”confides Vickie.
Ostomy at birth: “I sometimes felt quite alone”
After seven days in the neonatal intensive care unit, including two days in a medically induced coma, the little boy was able to return home with his parents.
Vickie admits: “Being a young mother is an experience anyway, so having a stoma was difficult too. It was very, very stressful and I felt quite alone at times because people were afraid to deal with the stoma, so I had to do everything.”
“Friends and family were afraid to change his stoma in case they did it wrong and caused an infection. They couldn’t manage the risk. It has certainly been difficult.”she remembers.
Anal imperforation: 6 interventions in 1 year
At three months old, the little boy was hospitalized again. The doctors wanted to create an anus for him. However, this caused the malfunction of its first stoma. It was then necessary to make an ileostomy (a digestive stoma located on the small intestine at the level of the ileum). Since his birth, the baby has undergone 6 operations, including the removal of a large part of his intestines which were dead.
“It caused him a lot of trauma. The key thing [pour moi] is to raise awareness and teach mothers how to monitor their babies”explains Vickie.
The doctors who follow the child very regularly are not sure that the toddler will one day be able to do without his ileostomy and be able to learn to go potty. But despite these numerous hospital stays, Charlie is a happy baby, assures his mother.
