Baby Born Without Face Turns One Year Old, Surviving Rare Fetal Condition

A baby boy born without a face in Philippines has managed to defy all odds and survive a year, celebrating his first birthday Oct. 3.

One-year-old Matthew Gillado, who was born to Isabela and Raven Gillado, suffers from acrania — a rare facial deformity that develops inside the fetus, and occurs in every 20,000 human babies. Merriam Webster defined acrania as “congenital partial or total absence of the skull.”

Matthew’s cranial region of the face is made of flat bones and a chunk of his skull is missing.

The couple believe over-the-counter capsules containing phenylephrine HCI, chlorphenamine maleate and paracetamol that Isabela took for a week during the first month of her pregnancy when she was suffering from fever might have caused Matthew’s rare facial condition, Mirror Online reported. However, no medical professional has confirmed this theory.

Two months before Matthew was born via cesarean section in a hospital in Santiago town in northern Philippines, the doctors examined Isabela’s first ultrasound and informed the couple that chances of Matthew surviving beyond a couple of weeks after birth were extremely low.

"When I first saw our baby, I trembled, felt weak and almost collapsed inside the delivery room. He was almost faceless,” Raven said.

However, despite the seriousness of Matthew’s condition, he was discharged from the hospital the very next day, while his mother was kept in the Intensive Care Unit for observation for another two weeks.

Despite the unfavorable prognosis, Matthew continued to survive consuming drops of milk and vitamins every day.

Although medical experts have told Isabela it would be too risky to perform major surgery on Matthew’s face due to his tender age and the fact that he weighs merely 11 pounds, the baby’s mother is hopeful a solution will present itself in the future.

"He is fighting for his life and we should also strive to provide his daily needs and always hope for a better future for our first born,” she said. “We will not let go. We’re all fighting and looking forward that someday through God’s grace and advancement in medical science, I can see the handsome face of Matthew, God’s gift to us."

Raven, who earns a bare minimum wage of $4 per day, working at a clothes factory in Balintawak, Quezon City, said he also had not given up on hope that Matthew will beat his condition one day as support continues to pour in from relatives and friends, helping tend to the infant’s special needs.

"We wanted to feel the physical presence of our baby, hug and kiss him. We named him Matthew as it means 'a gift from God.'"

The family traveled to Philippine General Hospital in Manila, which was 224 miles from Santiago City, in May to get an array of clinical and laboratory procedures done, and to find a potential solution to Matthew’s rare condition.