A baby girl born with a massive ADULT-SIZED tongue has smiled for the first time after life-changing surgery.
Little Paisley Morrison-Johnson was born with such a huge organ in her mouth that she needed breathing apparatus for the first week of her life to stop her from choking to death.
Her rare condition caused the little girl's tongue to grow more than twice the size of her mouth.
Even after surgery to slice parts of it away, it continued to grow back and still hung out of her mouth.
She was diagnosed as having been born with Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS) – an overgrowth disorder that affects one in every 11,000 births worldwide.
The size of the organ even shocked doctors, who said it was one of the largest tongues they had ever seen.
Paisley had to be fed via by a gastronomy-tube until she was six-months-old - because she struggled to eat and wasn't receiving the vital nutrients needed to keep her alive.
Concerned parents Madison Kienow, 21, and Shannon Morrison-Johnson, 23, from Aberdeen in South Dakota, USA, hoped their daughter's mouth would grow to accommodate her overgrown tongue - but that never happened.
Eventually Paisley had her second tongue reduction and has smiled for the first time after having a total of more than six inches of muscle removed.
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Paisley, who is 16-months-old, is now enunciating the sounds that will allow her to speak her first words.
Mum-of-two Madison, a pre-medical student, said: "Her tongue filled up her whole mouth, it was very thick and protruding out of her mouth.
"It looked she had an adult's size tongue inside the mouth of a baby.
"Her tongue was constantly sticking out, she was always chewing on her tongue because it took up so much room in her mouth.
"When she was born, it was so enlarged that doctors worried it was going to affect her airways and cause her to suffocate."
Paisley was incubated on a ventilator for her first three days and then given nasal oxygen – but by the time she was a week old she was breathing on her own.
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Her mum added: "Doctors told us she had one of the largest tongues they had ever seen and that the sooner she had reduction surgery the better.
"But after her first surgery it looked like her tongue had grown back to its original size and was really bothering us.
"During her second reduction surgery a massive amount of her tongue was removed and thankfully now it goes completely into her mouth.
"Since recovering she smiled for the very first time, I couldn't believe it and was shocked by how beautiful my little girl looked.
"Being able to see her smile is absolutely huge for us and now she's not even having difficulties eating which is a massive relief.
"She's like a completely new baby - her facial features look different, she smiles a lot and she has even getting close to saying her first words.
"She couldn't even make the sounds to say words like 'mama' and 'dada' before because of the size of her tongue so this feels like a massive achievement."
Before having her reduction surgeries, Madison noticed that people would stare at her daughter because of her enlarged tongue – which is one of the main symptoms of BWS and medically known as macroglossia.
Madison said: "Because her tongue protruded out of her mouth and constantly stuck out it always looked like she was making silly faces.
"Quite often, strangers would stare at her and some would make comments.
"They would always ask me why she looked so different and why she had such a huge tongue."
Doctors hope that Paisley won't need further tongue reduction surgery and are now monitoring for other risks associated to BWS.
