A 4-year-old girl is left unable to speak after suffering a stroke while still in her mother’s womb.
Ivy Thomas from Leytonstone has been struggling with the effects of cerebral palsy since she was born in April 2017.
She has only said the word ‘mama’ since her birth and has never said anything else, according to MyLondon.
According to just4children.org, the muscles on the left side of Ivy’s body contract without her being able to control them. Her balance is also not very good and neither is her stability.
Her mother, 43-year-old Valentina Cimmino, said there were no warning signs her little girl had these issues until five months after she was born.
“They told me I’ll never know what caused it, but from the MRI scan it looked like it was a prenatal stroke. We were just in shock. On the MRI scan we saw nearly all the right side of her brain had been affected.”
She continued: “It’s not obvious, it’s more of an invisible disability but it’s there and it brings a lot of complications, it’s like not having a hand.”
Ms. Cimmino and Ivy’s father Quame Thomas describe their daughter as a “very smart, funny, and very loving” girl.
Ivy also loves playing with animals, eating popcorn, playing with water, and going on adventures in muddy forests.
In addition to regular physiotherapy to straighten her limbs, she also needs many other therapies.
Her parents are now fundraising to make sure she can get all the therapies needed. The money raised will also help provide CIMT or Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy, a method to treat cerebral palsy.
The family has been documenting Ivy’s journey on their Instagram account @ivys_lifejourney.
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