When Ayla Summer Mucha was born in December 2021, she surprised her parents with a big smile on her tiny face. Even though her mom and dad were a bit confused at first because of a rare condition making her smile permanent, they quickly fell in love with her. Now, Ayla is famous on social media, and people all over the world adore her sweet smile.
After waiting for nine months, Cristina Vercher and her husband Blaize Mucha were excited to finally meet their baby girl on December 30, 2021. But during the birth by C-section, doctors gave them surprising news.
Ayla Summer Mucha was born with bilateral macrostomia, which means her mouth didn’t form properly.
The deformity, called a facial cleft, is a rare thing where the corners of the mouth don’t come together properly when a baby is growing inside the mom. It’s so rare that only 14 cases like it have been written about in medical books.
Ayla’s parents didn’t know about this before she was born because the ultrasounds didn’t show any problems. When they saw her with her mouth open wider than normal, they got really worried. Ayla’s mom, who is now 23, and her dad, who is 22, were surprised and concerned because the issue was obvious even though Ayla was so tiny.
“Blaize and I didn’t know about this condition, and I had never met anyone born with a macrostomia,” said Adelaide’s Vercher. “So, it was a big surprise.”
It wasn’t just the parents who were surprised. Even the doctors weren’t ready to handle a baby with bilateral macrostomia.
“It was even more worrying because it took hours for a doctor to give us an answer. And the hospital didn’t know much about this rare condition,” she said. “As a mother, all I could think about was where I went wrong.”
But doctors told the worried parents there was nothing they could have done differently. Cristina worried that she had somehow made a mistake during her pregnancy or had caused her daughter’s condition.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about where I might have gone wrong as a mother,” she said. However, after days of genetic testing and scans, they were reassured that this issue was completely out of their control, and they weren’t to blame for it.
The Mucha family focused on helping Ayla live comfortably with her condition, which affects how she can eat and drink. Sometimes, babies with this condition need surgery to help them.
To learn more about it, Ayla’s parents shared her story on social media. A lot of people, around 6.5 million, liked Ayla’s cute smile on TikTok. The Muchas were surprised by all the support they got.
One person wrote, “I just looked it up, and there are only 14 cases like hers that are known. She’s really special. You should be proud, Mom.”
