Iraqi baby headed to US for medical treatment

MIAMI (Reuters) – U.S. soldiers in Iraq encountered a baby
girl with a life-threatening birth defect during a raid at her
family’s home and arranged to send her to their home state of
Georgia for medical treatment, hospital officials said on
Friday.

The baby, 3-month-old Noor, was due to arrive on Saturday
at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a pediatric hospital that
is donating surgery and other care for the infant, hospital
spokeswoman Kristina Flynn said.

Noor was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which
the spinal column fails to completely close, leaving part of
the spinal cord exposed and susceptible to life-threatening
infection.

Soldiers with the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th
Brigade Combat Team searched her family’s home in a poor
Baghdad neighborhood earlier this month, looking for
insurgents. They found none, but the baby’s grandmother showed
the soldiers the purple pouch protruding from the child’s back
and the soldiers sought help in finding her treatment.

“All I could think of was my five children back at home and
my young daughter,” one of the soldiers involved, Lt. Jeff
Morgan, told CNN.

“And I knew if I had the opportunity whatsoever to save my
daughter’s life, I would do everything possible. So my heart
just kind of went out to this baby and these parents who …
were living in poverty and had no means to help their baby.”

The military flew the infant, her father and grandmother on
Friday to Kuwait, where they were to catch a commercial flight
to Atlanta.

Childspring International, a children’s medical charity,
set up the trip and arranged for the baby’s relatives to stay
with an Arabic-speaking family while the infant undergoes
medical treatment in Atlanta.

The baby’s family name was withheld to protect them from
potential retaliation for associating with U.S. soldiers.