Miracle baby survives seven heart attacks - and he's still smiling

A battling baby has survived seven heart attacks despite being just nine months old. Brave little Keelan-John Owen-Marston from Colwyn Bay, north Wales, was born last November with a rare condition called Laryngeal Cleft which allows food and fluid to pass into his airways and also leaves him unable to cry.
Proud mum Hannah Owen says he is her 'little soldier' and has continued to smile throughout his ordeal. Initially, she had “no idea that he had a problem” until he was born, two weeks and two days prematurely.
But doctors at Glan Clwyd Hospital became worried because Keelan-John hadn’t cried. The tot was then transferred to Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool where the condition was diagnosed.
Hannah said: “It’s very rare. There are only two other people I have found in the UK with a child with this condition. Most others are in the US.”
Remarkably, Keelan-John has only spent two weeks out of hospital in his short life as he struggles with breathing, digestion and heart problems.
Hannah told the North Wales Daily Post: “On January 9 he died for 20 minutes but they brought him back. He’s had seven cardiac arrests in total. But, bless him, he’s alive, and that’s all that matters. Things, though, have looked brighter since he underwent surgery later that month. At Alder Hey, aged only two months, Keelan-John had a major operation to separate the two pipes.“
He endured a tracheostomy and now has a pipe in his windpipe to ease breathing, and is fed through a food pipe fixed permanently into his stomach. Hannah said: “I want to raise awareness and share my soldier’s story. He has been through so much in the past nine months.
Even for a shopping trip, Hannah Owen has to pack an oxygen cylinder for her poorly baby son. It’s become as automatic as finding her purse and carrier bags. “He just gets on with it,” Hannah said.
Keelan-John is currently home from hospital and his mum said: “He’s a happy baby. The first thing he does in the morning is smile. He’s on his play mat now.”
As for the future, he still has to have a tube, which fits into a windpipe tube, changed at regular intervals. And a tummy tube needs to be changed and cleaned of food and medicine frequently too.
And his voice may be different to how it would have developed had he been born healthily. “Half the vocal chords are lower than the other half so he will have a high pitched or a husky voice.”
But Hannah praises staff at Alder Hey children’s hospital on Merseyside for their dedication and care.
At home, Hannah and Ian Marston also have a son Donovan, six, who has autism, and a daughter Ashanti, four.