Meet baby Eli, the miracle baby born without a nose
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Little Timothy Eli was born March 4th at 4:42 p.m. weighing 6lbs 8oz.
“Perfectly healthy,” wrote Eli’s mom Brandi McGlathery on Facebook.
Perfectly healthy and normal in every way save one.
“Eli was born without a nose,” wrote McGlathery.
Doctors diagnosed Eli with an extremely rare condition called complete congenital arhinia.
McGlathery told her local newspaper in Birmingham Alabama being born with this type of malformation is a one in 197 million chance.
Besides not having an external nose, he doesn't have a nasal cavity or olfactory system. (Despite that fact, she said, he sneezes. "The first time he did it, we looked at each other and said, 'You heard that, right?'")
Initially McGlathery had hoped a surgeon might someday be able to help.
“Even with a plastic surgeon building a nose for him, it wouldn't work,” wrote McGlathery on her GoFundMe page. “They've ordered more test and scans and we are currently awaiting those results.”
McGlathery told AL.com that once she brings her son home he will need to see specialists on a regular basis and if plastic surgery is ever possible it wouldn’t be until later in life. Until then she says she knows what she’ll do.
"We're going to do our best to make sure he's happy," she said. "The rest of him is so cute, sometimes you don't realize he doesn't have a nose."