Parents of a baby who was born with her bowels outside her body have spoken of their joy when their daughter first smiled following life-saving surgery.

Despite undergoing multiple operations and spending her first six days with her intestines safely supported in a medical bag above her, five-month-old Layla Henderson has learnt to smile.

Layla’s mother, Zoe Sweeney, says this has helped her and Layla’s father James Henderson, get through the difficult journey.

“She’s been through so much and it felt like it was never going to end,” Sweeney told The Daily Record.

“It was a heart-warming moment and the cutest smile I’ve ever seen. She was coping, so we felt we should do her proud and be able to cope with it, too.”

A routine scan when Sweeney was 12 weeks pregnant showed Layla was suffering from gastroschisis – a rare condition in which a baby’s abdomen does not develop fully while in the womb, leading to the child’s organs extending through an opening beside the belly button.

Sweeney was induced in Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, at 37 weeks and Layla was born, weighing 5lb 10oz, on April 15.

Writing on a fundraising page set up for her daughter Sweeney explained that Layla’s bowels were placed in a special bag called a silo, which was suspended above her so that gravity would “slowly help them back to where they were meant to be”.

When Layla was six days old she had an operation to gently move the last few inches of bowel inside her tummy and the opening was closed.

Her treatment also involved being wrapped in cling film and her umbilical cord was saved when she was born so doctors could create a “designer belly button” rather than leave her with a large scar.

Layla was briefly allowed home to Inverness-shire, Scotland, but she was taken back into hospital when further tests showed she had a rare heart infection called endocarditis and a blood clot had formed over the affected area.

For two weeks Sweeney and Henderson sat by Layla’s hospital bedside in Glasgow as she was treated with medication through a drip.

Layla was finally allowed home on September 14 and Sweeney said: “It’s wonderful being able to have a cuddle in the morning without having to walk through the hospital to see her.

“Hopefully this time we won’t be going back.”

Source: huffingtonpost.co.uk