The baby kept alive by Viagra

Impotency pill helps Owen stage incredible recovery

DIAGNOSED with a serious medical condition while still in his mother's womb, Owen Bloomfield was given just a 50-50 chance of survival.

When the tiny tot was born, doctors discovered he was even sicker than they had first thought.

And they warned his parents they did not expect Owen to live longer than a week.

Incredibly, the baby boy has confounded medical opinion - and stunned his parents - by fighting for survival with the help of Viagra, the drug normally used to treat impotent men.

Owen was born with his stomach in his chest, a hole in his heart and a rare lung disorder. Today he is being kept alive with a dose of Viagra every four hours and has amazed medics by his remarkable recovery.

Last night his parents paid tribute to their son's courage and spoke about his return from the brink of death with the help of a little blue pill.

His father, Ronnie Bloomfield, 24, said: 'I thought it was an old man's drug but Owen gets it every four hours. He has pulmonary hypertension and he is given it to open up the blood vessels in his lungs and lower his blood pressure.

'It has been a real rollercoaster.'

Owen was born with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), which left him with an incomplete diaphragm - the breathing muscle that separates the chest and abdominal cavities.

As a result, his stomach, intestines, part of his liver and his spleen formed in his chest. He also has two extra spleens, although only one works.

In addition, he has a hole in his heart, which has yet to be corrected, and pulmonary hypertension, a rare and life-threatening blood vessel disorder of the lungs.

His mother, Jennifer Strachan, who lives with her partner in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, had gone alone for a scan when she was 22 weeks pregnant to be given the devastating news that her son had CDH, which occurs in just one in every 2,500 births.

She said: 'When I had my 12week scan, I was chuffed because I thought everything was fine and nothing else could go wrong.

'Then, at 22 weeks, they told me he had CDH. I had never heard of it before and when they explained what it was, I just started crying.'

For the rest of her pregnancy, Miss Strachan had scans every three weeks to check how the baby was developing and had other tests to see if her son had other conditions such as Down's syndrome.

At one point, she was told she may even have to terminate her pregnancy if the condition was too severe. To make matters worse, the additional heart and lung complications did not become apparent until Owen arrived a week earlier than planned, weighing 6lbs 7oz, at Glasgow's Queen Mother's Hospital on July 23.

He was not expected to pull through the three-hour operation to put his organs back in the correct places. Miss Strachan said: 'The three hours of his operation were the worst three of my life because we were told he could die on the operating table.

'I just thought "Oh my God, it's all going to go wrong".

'The doctors said they had only known of one or two babies to survive with all three complications and if he didn't start to pick up in a week, we would have to think about turning his medication off and letting him go peacefully. The next day he started to pick up.'

Owen is still on a ventilator to aid his breathing but he is now responding to treatment.

Miss Strachan, who suffered a miscarriage just three months before she found out she was pregnant with Owen, now spends seven hours at a time by her son's cot in the neo-natal intensive care unit in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill, in Glasgow, as he battles for survival.

She and her partner have been warned their little boy could spend up to a year in hospital.

She said: 'It's hard seeing him lying there like that. I can't wait to pick him up and give him a cuddle.'

BATTLE TO BREATHE

CONGENITAL Diaphragmatic Hernia is a birth defect that affects one in every 2,500 babies - 50 per cent do not survive.

Babies with the condition frequently are unable to breathe effectively on their own because their lungs are underdeveloped.

An operation moves the stomach, intestine and other abdominal organs from the chest cavity back into the abdominal cavity.

Once the baby no longer needs help from a ventilator to breathe, they may still need oxygen and medications to help with breathing for weeks, months or even years.