Poppy Wadsworth, of York, England, was born with a congenital birth defect, cloaca, when the rectum, vagina and urinary tract share a single common channel. According to the National Institutes of Health, cloacal anomalies occur in 1 in 250,000 live births.
When she was born, doctors had to do a blood test to determine her gender, as she had no visible genitals.
Poppy is permanently on antibiotics to fight infections and has one functioning kidney. Upon birth, surgeons created a stoma in her stomach, through which waste passes through and collects in a pouch.
Now Dr. Marc Levitt, director of the Center for Colorectal and Pelvic Reconstruction at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, plans to operate on Poppy, Fox News Health confirmed.
The surgery would allow Poppy to use the toilet normally and maybe have children in the future, Express.co.uk reported. The hospital has agreed to pay half the cost of an operation and the family has to raise $77,997 for the remainder. They are fundraising through JustGiving.com.
“I asked the surgeon at least three times during our conference call, ‘Can you fix her?’” Poppy’s mom, Alison, 45, told Express.co.uk.
The doctor told her that he could. He would make her a vagina, reshape her bladder, give her working kidneys, and remove one of her wombs.
Alison told the newspaper that she tries her best to make Poppy feel like any other little girl.
"I even got her a teddy with a stoma. When she went into reception a couple of boys said, 'Eww, are you wearing a [diaper]?'
They could see she was wearing something bulky under her clothes,” she told Express.co.uk. “We told the school about her stoma and explained what it was. They explained to the other pupils and now they have all accepted her for who she is.
SOURCE: FOX NEWS
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