As a parent, I can’t imagine anything more shattering than being told that your baby probably won’t live to see her second birthday.
Until fairly recently, that was the terrible reality for the parents of children born with a severe form of an inherited disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).
But a wave of new therapies is rewriting the future for children with SMA.
All of these treatments work by somehow compensating for a problem caused by a malfunctioning gene.
To me, the fact that kids with this disease are reaching milestones that would once have been unheard of seems nearly miraculous.
Find out more by reading my most recent piece for Postmedia Content Works: ‘Spinal muscular atrophy is no longer the life-limiting diagnosis it once was’.