Baby RB dies after High Court case
The severely disabled little boy known as Baby RB has died, it has been reported.
He was the subject of an emotionally charged High Court case after his father challenged doctors who argued that the child's life support should be switched off "in his best interests".
The father later withdrew his objections and the judge agreed he should be allowed to die in peace.
His mother revealed in the Mail on Sunday that the couple cuddled him as they switched off his life support system on Friday. The child died shortly afterwards.
She told the newspaper: "When they took his tube out, I was cuddling him. It was so amazing to see him without it - it's the longest we had seen his face properly. The last thing I said to him was that I loved him and would always be there for him."
She said she felt her son had become a "guinea pig". "Anyone who judges me doesn't know how hard it was," she added. "We could have withdrawn care at four weeks old but we didn't - we fought for him. I've loved every second, every minute I've had with my son and in my eyes he's still my perfect little boy."
Baby RB, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was born on October 10 2008 after a normal labour. But he was extremely sick and had to be kept alive on a ventilator in a neonatal intensive case unit.
Doctors diagnosed him as suffering a form of congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS), a rare neuromuscular condition that severely restricted his ability to breathe and move. He had a normal brain locked inside an immobile body - he had little control over his limbs and was unable to make facial expressions.
Expert medical witnesses told the High Court he was unable to show when he was in pain during the very stressful treatment he had to undergo, including regular "suctioning" of his airways to remove fluid. But lawyers for the father, identified only as AB, argued that because his brain was unaffected, he could see, hear and feel and recognise his parents.
But the case was settled on the seventh day of a Family Court hearing after the father changed his mind.
