‘Miracle’ boy expected to be paralysed due to spina bifida able to wal

A three-year-old boy who would almost certainly have been born paralysed because of a severe spinal abnormality is able to walk after having ground-breaking stem cell surgery while still in the womb.

An ultrasound scan 20 weeks into pregnancy showed Tobi Maginnis had spina bifida, a disabling condition in which the spinal cord fails to develop properly during pregnancy, leaving part of it growing outside the body.

But he became just the second baby to have the abnormality repaired before he was born using rejuvenating stem cells taken from the placenta.

His mum, Michelle Johnson, told Sky News that he was full of energy.

“He runs, he walks, he jumps, he is all over the place,” she said.

“We expected Tobi to be wheelchair-bound. So to see where he is now, it’s nothing short of a miracle.”

‘Blessed every day’

Tobi was one of six babies in a world-first clinical trial led by the University of California Davis Children’s Hospital.

Around 25 weeks into pregnancy surgeons made a small opening in the mothers’ abdomen and womb. They then placed a patch of stem cells over the babies’ exposed spinal cord and then closed up the incision to allow the tissue to regenerate.

All were born healthy, with no sign of side effects from treatment, according to results published in The Lancet medical journal.

Tobi’s dad, Jeff Maginnis, said: “He’s the second human to go through this surgery with stem cells. So there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknowns.

“We’re just blessed every day when we see how Tobi’s reacted and been affected by this very successful surgery.”

Clinicians ‘cautiously optimistic’

Dr Diana Farmer, who led the study and has pioneered the technique, said the birth of the first baby, a girl…