Cute Chubby Baby Does Weird Thing

As a pediatric nurse practitioner, my opinion of this little lassie is that she has Down Syndrome, or Trisomy 21. She is probably not a baby, but toddler aged. People with this syndrome have very weak muscle tone and are late walkers. People with Down Syndrome are generally joyous, as is this young girl. So tragic that 92% of children with Down Syndrome identified in utero are aborted. This is a travesty of our modern age.

I'm so lazy that my first thought was all she needs is a microfiber diaper and her mother could be done with the dusting at least until she starts walking.

My mother-in-law would probably call her the Swiffer baby, thinking along the same lines as Dymphna. Very cute! Glad the parents videotaped it. Might come in useful when this cutie reaches the teen years.

Alas, she is different. Her face is definitely syndromic. This is Anonymous Nurse Practitioner here again. I'd put my money on her having either Down Syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome. Those kids really do look like Sumo wrestlers and have very tiny feet. It is a genetic condition where the kids have uncontrollable appetites and parents have to put locks on the fridge, the cupboard and the pantry–wherever food is stored.

It's a reality that this child is so different that a video of her "weird" method of mobilizing herself is now circulating the Internet. No different than the "Freak Shows" of ages past, is it? In the 1800 people were in freak shows because they were so different that if the conditions they had didn't kill them in infancy, they were oddities to be gawked at. In our modern age, these kids fascinate us because they have survived the womb and are rarities. I am not mesmerized by this video–I'm a clinician who, in 32 years of pediatric experience, have seen many, many different children with rare syndromes come through the doors of our hospital.

It is the human condition that we are mezmerized, fascinated, enthralled by something so out of the ordinary. Our Lord knows this–we catagorize and deal with the world this way. None-the-less, we accept our children for what they are, not simply abort them because they will be retarded, have a "hare-lip", or be "mongoloid". And believe me, people are now opting to abort children on the basis of having a cleft lip, and increasingly because they are the wrong sex ie:fetal reduction because of too many babies implanting after IVF. All these syndromic babies are being aborted out of fear. But to know these children is to love them–they are closer to God than we'll ever know.

My son didn't walk 'till he was eighteen months old. Until then, he perfected the "commando crawl" to get around. Eventually he decided he needed to get the walking thing down to keep up with Daddy, but the commando crawl was a treat to watch.

Anonymous Nurse Practitioner may be absolutely right about the girl having either Downs Syndrome or Prader-Willi. I'm sure she would agree, though, in any case, that this video is a priceless gem.

Fidela, I don't think human childhood is weird at all. My adult standard says it's a beautiful, joyous time in a human's life. The kids do and think according to their developmental level. Educate yourself or spend a lot of time with kids and you will discover they are not weird at all. That's why Jesus encourages us to be like little children–trusting and to come to the Father. Why must you pit human adults against human children as having "different standards". Are you the kind of adult that thinks it's no use trying to instill any values into kids because they are weird and cannot possibly adopt a mutual cultural and moral standard? Of course I enjoy children and find them fun and amusing, but the fact that this video of this obese little girl with a syndromic face is circulating the Internet strikes me as no different than freak shows of 100 years ago. This little girl cannot walk, or she would. And she is syndromic, trust me. If doctors and nurses hesitated putting people into "neat little boxes", no one would ever have a diagnosis! We organize our world through our senses and my trained sense tells me that that little girl has a syndrome. That's different than a stranger coming up to your nephew and telling him he had Down Syndrome. And it is Down Syndrome, not Down's Syndrome. Thank you for listening.

Thanks Anonymous Nurse and the mother of a Down Syndrome child- I also felt uncomfortable with this video and the freak show aspect…so thankyou for being so much more knowledgeable and articulate than I could be and speaking up for this little one and all the others out there.
We need to highlight their dignity and worth.

And, Anonymous 3:03, I think you missed the point, completely. No one is chastising the Archbold brothers. The chastisement is towards parents who choose to put their children on the internet, more than anything else. I'm not saying that it should never be – there are certain videos I have certainly enjoyed, but I always questions parents' judgment when they choose to expose their children to literally the world, no matter how cute they are. Anonymous Nurse Practitioner has personal experience dealing with children who will be looked at all of their lives as "freaks". One can say that that no longer happens, but that is not true. So maybe there is something wrong with everyone. That's usually the case.

"Am I completely naive? HOW can people be so terrible. I wonder, I really wonder: Are *they* human? "

As quoted above. Kudos to you. I have the same feeling about comments like these. It's the anonymity of the internet that brings out the worst in people. It makes you a little scared to imagine that people are capable of thinking that way. I too wonder, are *they* (the cruel commentators) human?

Actually, people are saying that the "baby" is really a 28 year old woman with a disorder. I'm not sure myself, but that's what people have said about it.