Baby girl with facial disfigurements labelled a ‘monster’

THE parents of a disfigured baby girl have hit back at online trolls who called her a "monster" and said she should be "killed".

Naffi and Racheli Goldman have revealed their heartbreak at strangers' responses to their disabled daughter Batya - who was born with a rare condition that has left her with a malformed skull and a twisted spine.

They have come to the defence of their little girl, who is also deaf, blind, unable to breathe on her own.

It wasn't until a 3D scan in Tel Aviv in Israel during the pregnancy that the couple - who are from Manchester and had been trying to conceive for two years - discovered anything was amiss with the health of their unborn child.

Doctors told them she had a rare congenital disorder and that she was "not compatible with life".

The couple were given the horrific option of deciding whether to abort their baby at seven months.

They refused and decided to go through with the birth.

Naffi said: "We were told to abort straight away and the doctors knew she would be born with a serious medical condition.

"They weren't sure what, but they knew Batya would be seriously disabled.

"We were told she wouldn't make it through birth and if she did, would die in infancy.

"They said caring for her would make our lives unbearable.

"It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear and our world came crashing down.

"But God is a creator and he doesn't make mistakes. We will look after the gift we have been given."

He added: "To us, aborting at seven months would have been murder. She wasn't a faetus, she was a real life baby.

"We were not prepared to take a child's life and we were defiant about not aborting."

However, though they very much wanted Batya, even they were shocked by her appearance when she finally arrived in January 2018.

She was rushed to intensive care and suffered respiratory failure during infancy, and is now kept alive by a ventilator.

Her dad Naffi, who has had to give up work to help care for her full-time at home with Racheli, has admitted he was initially "frightened" by her bulging eyes and unusually-shaped head.

He explained: "She had an enlarged head and her eyes were bulging.

"I could see straight away that her spine wasn't straight. She was frightening to look at.

"It was scary for us. We knew straight away that the future was going to be very, very hard for us."

But he still very much loved his little girl - who was eventually diagnosed with spina bifida, Pfeiffer Syndrome and Antley Bixler Syndrome.

They were surprised then, that after sharing family photos on Facebook, they were hit with a torrent of abuse.

Online trolls fired death threats and cruelly branded Batya a "monster".

One comment read: "Do you think keeping this creature alive is the right thing to do?".

Other trolls called Batya a "sick fetus" and said she looked like "medusa", known in Greek Mythology as a monster.

Naffi, a jewellery dealer, revealed: "When we saw the comments on our photographs we were horrified.

"We didn't think people like this existed. What people were saying was dreadful. People said they have never seen such an ugly child.

"They said our child is a creature. One person said what we are doing is abuse and someone told us she looks like some kind of monster.

"People said 'why bring a creature into this world, you should have killed her'. It broke our hearts."