A baby was born in USA with no eyeballs

January 27, 2015  12:56

Three months ago in Mesa, Arizona, a boy was born, and his happy mother, Kelly Lopez, didn't  imagine that her son would never be able to look at her.

By 13 days of age, the baby had an MRI, and the family was shocked to learn he had no eyeballs beneath those closed lids.

Doctors say he does have an optic nerve, giving hope that he might someday see, so for now doctors sutured expanders into his eye sockets to allow them to grow and perhaps eventually hold prosthetic eyes.

''We were just in shock. The first thought through your mind is, how did this even happen?" Lopez says. She told that she had a normal pregnancy, and the family has enrolled the boy in programs for blind babies and outfitted him with baby sunglasses.

The baby is diagnosed with a rare birth defect called Anophthalmia. The Centers for Disease Control describe it as a total absence of eye tissue or apparent absence of the globe.

"I do hope that one day doctors will be able to either grow an eye or transplant an eye," Lopez adds.

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