One-year-old child who suffered multiple strokes in womb moves for first time with special wheelchair

A powered wheelchair allowed him to finally move independently

A one-year-old boy who suffered several strokes in the womb has moved on his own for the first time, with the help of a £6,000 specialist wheelchair.

George Clements-Siddall had several strokes before he was born when his mother Susanna Clements, 40, fell and hit her bump on the corner of a step at 25 weeks pregnant.

After an initial scan only revealed a build-up of fluid, doctors and the second-time mother, believed that she had “got away with it”, but in fact the placenta had been damaged.

And a post-birth CT scan revealed that George had lost the use of about a quarter of his brain - a result of multiple strokes.

The damage included the part of the brain which controls co-ordination of limbs, and George was diagnosed with cerebral palsy on one side of his body.

He was left unable to roll, sit, crawl or walk and Clements, a junior doctor, feared for her son’s development. She said: “We don’t know how much learning difficulty he is going to have.

“But all the evidence shows that the earlier children are able to move independently the better it is for their all-round development.”

In the interests of aiding George’s early development as much as possible, an occupational therapist arranged for him to try out a specialist, powered wheelchair.

(SWNS) (Susanna Clements / SWNS)

George’s experience in the powered wheelchair was the first time the one-year-old has been able to move independently. Unfortunately, like many other recommended aids for disabled children, it is not provided by the NHS.

George’s family have now launched a fundraising drive on GoFundMe to pay for a chair. It will cost around £6,000 and last until he is 10 years old.

Clements, who lives in Hillsborough, said: “If you see the video it is amazing. The designer of the chair commented that he had never seen anyone so young be so responsive. You can see him figuring out how it works. It proves he will benefit from it.

(Susanna Clements / SWNS.com (Susanna Clements / SWNS.com)

“Enabling George to know that he can reach a toy from across the room without help or enabling him to choose to catch up with his brother in the park changes his expectations of life. It changes the way they think.

“At the moment I am just really keen to tap into George’s full potential. I just want to make sure he gets as far as he can.”

Clements hopes that the powered chair could help George “rewire” his brain: “The brain has got so much potential to rewire but you just need to give babies that stimulus.”

(Susanna Clements /SWNS (Susanna Clements /SWNS)

Recalling the fall which caused her son’s stroke, Clements said: “At 25 weeks I had a fall and hit my bump on the corner of a step. At the time my baby had gone from moving to not moving.

“I had a scan and apart from there being a bit too much fluid everything seemed fine, we thought we had got away with it.”

It was only at birth that doctors realised something was seriously wrong. Clements said: “George was born with a small head and it was originally thought that his skull had fused too early.

(Susanna Clements / SWNS (Susanna Clements / SWNS)

“At two months old, George had a CT scan. His doctor showed us the image. It looked like there were big holes in George’s brain.

“They didn’t know the cause until he had an MRI scan. He was then diagnosed with porencephalic cysts, likely caused by lots of strokes.

“The areas that have been damaged in his brain include parts that control his coordination. On the left-hand side, there is damage to his motor signals which caused Cerebral Palsy on the right side of George’s body. It means George finds it very difficult to move his right arm and leg.”

(Susanna Clements / SWNS (Susanna Clements / SWNS)

Clements and her partner Andrew Siddall believe the whole family would benefit from the wheelchair, especially George’s seven-year-old brother Tommy. The chair would allow George to keep up with his brother and move independently.