Girl, 4, can see for the first time thanks to miracle stem cell operation<\/p>\n
A little girl who has been blind since birth has seen her mother and father for the first time \u2013 at the age of four.<\/p>\n
Izabelle Evans can now see up to three feet in front of her after groundbreaking stem cell treatment in China costing \u00a350,000.<\/p>\n
Parents James Evans and Hollie McHugh said nothing could beat the feeling of the first time their daughter looked into their eyes and said: \u2018mummy\u2019 and \u2018daddy\u2019.<\/p>\n
Hollie, 24, of Hayling Island, Hampshire, said: \u2018The results were better than we could ever have dreamed of.<\/p>\n
\u2018If you walk past she can see you and say \u2018hiya.\u2019 It is amazing because doctors here said she couldn\u2019t see anything at all before we went.\u2019<\/p>\n
Izabelle was blind from birth after being born with Septo Optic Displasia \u2013 a congenital condition which affects just five in one million babies and also causes hormone deficiency and mobility problems.<\/p>\n
It means she had only a few hundred optic nerves to her brain whereas she needs millions to be able to see.<\/p>\n
Her parents decided to send Izabelle for treatment in China after researching her condition on the internet and raised the money needed in just over a year.<\/p>\n
Her parents had hoped the controversial stem cell treatment \u2013 which is not available in the UK \u2013 would improve her sight, speech and mobility.<\/p>\n
It involves injecting the spinal canal with cells taken from the umbilical cords of healthy babies. The cells are then used to rebuild the optic nerves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Girl, 4, can see for the first time thanks to miracle stem cell operation A little girl who has been blind since birth has seen her mother and father for the first time \u2013 at the age of four. Izabelle Evans can now see up to three feet in front of her after groundbreaking stem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}