Toddler with rare condition defies doctors to sit up for the first time

This is the heartwarming moment a little girl who has spent her whole life in hospital due to a rare syndrome sat up by herself for the first time. Gracie Heater, 19 months, lives with Apert syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes a fusion of bones in the skull and spine which can inhibit the brain’s development. She was diagnosed with the condition, which causes fusion of bones in the hands and arms, when her mum Saskia Hansen, 25, went into premature labour at seven months. Doctors in St Luke’s Presbyterian Hospital in Denver, Colorado, delayed Saskia’s labour for four weeks until she delivered baby Gracie on October 21, 2016. After she was born, Gracie was rushed to the hospital’s NICU, where doctors discovered her respiratory system was also deformed and placed her on a ventilator.