Mesa, Arizona Baby Richie Lopez Born Without Eyes, Parents Hopeful He'll Gain Vision in the Future
An Arizona woman discovered her baby had no eyes nearly two weeks after giving birth.
According to AZfamilly.com, three-month-old Richie Lopez was born to a family in the East Valley at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa. His mother, Kelly Lopez, said she had a normal pregnancy, and there were no signs that her son would be born without eyes.
Kelly was concerned Richie did not open his eyes a few hours after being born. The staff at the hospital initially thought that his face was just swollen.
Two weeks later, an MRI read that newborn Richie was born without eyes.
"I think we were just in shock. Obviously very upsetting," Kelly Lopez said. "The first thought through your mind is, how did this even happen, and how was it not even caught?"
Doctors placed expanders in Richie's eye sockets when he was seven weeks old in order to allow the eye socket to grow for a prosthetic eyeball in the future. Richie has frequently rubbed the expanders out, and one was eaten by the family dog.
Kelly had to replace one expander in her baby's eye while on the phone with a surgeon at 2 a.m.
"It was so emotional, but I knew I had to do it. I knew that he needed this and I had no other choice; we were going to get it back in," Lopez said.
Doctors say the baby has an optic nerve that gives hope that he may be able to see one day.
"I do hope that one day that they'll be able to either grow an eye or transplant an eye," Kelly said.
Daily Mail reported babies born without eyes suffer from Anophthalmia, which means absence of the eye. It is still not clear what causes Anophthalmia.
Richie now wears a pair of baby sunglasses.
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