Mum With Virtually No Muscles Miraculously Gives Birth to Baby Boy

A young woman with a rare muscular condition has miraculously given birth to a baby boy.

When Sheree Psaila, 22, hears her baby cry, all she wants to do is pick him up, but her rare genetic condition means that she can’t possibly do that as she has virtually no muscle tissue in her arms or legs. “Sometimes he’ll cry and I can’t reach him to pick him up. I have to wait for someone to pick him up for me,” she said.

Ms Psaila was born with a rare congenital condition called arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, meaning she has little muscle tissue and is barely able to bend her joints, and doctors warned she would not live past her first birthday.

She underwent over 20 surgeries which only did a little to ease her condition, yet she remained determined to lead a normal life. Doctors suggested to her parents that she be put in a wheelchair and sent to a special needs school, but she defied their expectations and took her first steps at five years old.

Ms Psaila met her husband Chris, who has a hereditary condition that caused damage to his lower spine, before they got married in March 2015.

After suffering a miscarriage, the couple tried again for another baby. Doctors were initially concerned that Ms Psaila, who is just 122cm or 4 feet tall, would be too small to allow her baby to grow normally. “The doctors told me I probably wouldn’t be able to have kids, although they didn’t give me a reason why not,” she said.

At 29 weeks pregnant, the couple moved to Melbourne to be closer to the hospital, and rather than give birth naturally, Ms Psaila had a cesarean under a general anaesthetic. Thankfully, baby Hayden was born, measuring 47cm tall and weighing 2.5 kilograms, and has no disability.