{"id":25675,"date":"2026-11-07T22:09:38","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T22:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/?p=25675"},"modified":"2026-11-07T22:09:38","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T22:09:38","slug":"mom-recalls-heartbreaking-moment-she-found-out-baby-has-rare-syndrome-that-doesnt-allow-her-to-close-eyes-or-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/?p=25675","title":{"rendered":"Mom recalls heartbreaking moment she found out baby has rare syndrome that doesn\u2019t allow her to close eyes or smile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seeing your child smile is one of the most precious things in life. However, sadly, it\u2019s not something that should be taken for granted. Just ask Victoria LaBrie, who gave birth to daughter Hazel in December 2024. She understood straight away that something wasn\u2019t right, as her child couldn\u2019t close her eyes or smile<\/strong>

Victoria LaBrie has shared the heartbreaking moment she understood that her newborn daughter, Hazel, was unable to smile or close her eyes due to a rare disorder.

In December 2024, she gave birth to Hazel. Already at 20 weeks pregnant, doctors had told her that there were possible issues with her pregnancy.

\u201cThey thought her brain had fused together. It was actually suggested or more so, kind of like, here\u2019s grief packets type of thing,\u201d Victoria told Fox. \u201cWhat are you wanting to do? And it took a lot of testing to get to the point where we found out that that wasn\u2019t the issue.\u201d

\u201cHer eyes were wide open on an ultrasound and we would always just talk about how cute it was. Like, wow, who gets to see that? Not many people. But then it happened again. And it\u2019s like, wow, that\u2019s luck.\u201d

It turned out that Hazel suffered from a rare brain disorder. Moebius syndrome is an incurable disorder that causes facial paralysis and the inability to blink.

Mom Victoria LaBrie\u2019s daughter Hazel couldn\u2019t smile or close her eyes

According to the Moebius Syndrome Foundation, it occurs when cranial nerves fail to develop properly during pregnancy. It\u2019s estimated that 2 to 20 cases occur per 1 million births.

In an interview with Inside Edition, Victoria LaBrie revealed the heartbreaking moment she learned of her daughter\u2019s diagnosis.

\u201cAs soon as they handed her to me and I saw her eyes opened, I knew something wasn\u2019t right,\u201d the mother of five recalled. \u201cIt took about two weeks of testing, MRIs, EMGs, all of the above, to find out it was Moebius syndrome.\u201d

Hazel has had multiple brain surgeries. The little girl also lives with another neurological condition called Hydrocephalus, caused by an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the brain.

Meanwhile, Victoria\u2019s 7-year-old twin daughters, Harley and Harper, are autistic, her five-year-old Colton is an autistic savant, and her 14-year-old sister, whom she adopted, has ADHD.

Victoria LaBrie has shared her experiences with Hazel and her other children on social media, garnering millions of views. Although the 31-year-old mother has endured much heartache, she wants to help others in the same situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n



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Seeing your child smile is one of the most precious things in life. However, sadly, it\u2019s not something that should be taken for granted. Just ask Victoria LaBrie, who gave birth to daughter Hazel in December 2024. She understood straight away that something wasn\u2019t right, as her child couldn\u2019t close her eyes or smileVictoria LaBrie …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25677,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25675\/revisions\/25677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}