Parents of disabled children will know the difficulties of navigating their child’s care when they start going through puberty.
A new treatment has offered to save severely disabled children the ‘distress’ of the physical changes that come with adolescence by stunting development.
The parents of 10-year-old Charley Hooper made the difficult decision to remove her uterus and start hormone medication that will prevent her from entering puberty and growing larger than her current size.
Charley- who’s family lives in New Zealand- was left severely brain damaged after she was starved of oxygen at birth.
She is unable to walk or speak and Charley also has damaged sight. As well as suffering from epilepsy, Charley has the brain function of a newborn child.
Her parents Jenn and Mark feared that should Charley grow into an adult her mobility would be massively compromised and she would be forced to spend most of her life in bed.
Jenn told Daily Mail Australia: “Charley's brain is completely abnormal, the best way to describe her is, well, she has tetraplegia - that term is not used a lot any more but is sums up her condition better than the term quadriplegic because it means Charley cannot use her brain or her limbs.”
The treatment Charley is undergoing leave her in a ‘child-like’ state for the rest of her life, something Jenn feels will help Charley and her family.
She explained: “I know it is more common in the United States and is very rare around the world but I have no regrets, growth attenuation was the best thing for Charley, she has a better quality of life because of it and she started smiling since the treatment.”
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