The tongue is 5 times longer: in Lviv, doctors operated on an infant with a rare syndrome – News

Photo: Children’s Medicine Center. “Okhmatdit” Hospital

In Lviv, the tongue of a one-year-old baby was shortened at the Children’s Medicine Center, established on the basis of the “Okhmatdyt” hospital. Due to a rare syndrome, this organ was 5 times longer than normal.

In Ukraine, only two children have this syndrome, reports the “Okhmatdyt” hospital.

When Levchyk from Odessa was still in his mother’s womb, at 32 weeks during an ultrasound examination, the doctor discovered that he was showing his tongue. This quite moved the future parents.

At the re-examination, the kid’s prank did not seem cute, because the parents heard about the suspicion of a genetic syndrome that can affect the child’s development.

When Leo was born, he had a protruding tongue. The baby could only eat from a bottle, as any solid food would fall out of his mouth.

“The son was born with a tongue that is 5-6 times larger than the tongue of a normal child. The geneticist confirmed that the son has the rare Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome,” said the boy’s mother, Olena.

Her son became the second child in the history of Ukraine to be born with this syndrome.

Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome is a rare genetic anomaly that causes intensive development of various organs during pregnancy. It slows down until the child is 8 years old.

According to statistics, such a syndrome is detected in an average of one child per 20,000 newborns.

At the moment, Odessa is 1 year and 3 months old. In addition to a huge tongue, Levchyk also has enlarged internal organs, and one leg is 3 centimeters longer than the other.

Such problems should be corrected as soon as possible, but the first thing to do is to take care of the tongue, because it could cause breathing and eating problems for the baby, say the doctors of “Okhmatdyt”.

According to doctors, the difficulty of the operation lies in the fact that Levchyk’s tongue had to be folded so that the boy could fully breathe, eat and talk. For this, in particular, American colleagues were consulted.

After the operation, the boy’s tongue is almost normal in size, and for the first time in his life he was able to hide it in his mouth.

Levchyk has further treatment and rehabilitation ahead of him.

“Currently, my son is relearning how to drink, eat and communicate, as all children do, because earlier he was forced to adapt to the conditions created by a big tongue,” Olena added.

Earlier we talked about what to do if you burn your tongue.