Stacy Jackson said ten-week-old son Jaxon would not be here, if she had followed hospital advice to terminate her pregnancy.
Stacy and partner Scott claimed they were warned at Sunderland Royal Hospital that their baby would be so severely brain damaged it would be best to have an abortion.
First-time mum Stacy, 20, of Grangetown, said: "We were told the baby would be lucky to get through the pregnancy or that even if he did he may only last a day, a week or a month, but that he would not survive."I was just so upset, it was such a shock. I think it must have been motherly instinct. I knew my baby and I knew it wasn't true."Stacy had attended her 20-week ultrasound scan at the hospital when she noticed something was wrong.
They claim they were told by Kim Hinshaw, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Royal, that the baby had brain damage and probably wouldn't survive.
It was a devastating blow for the couple, who had been trying for a baby for two years, without success.
Lee, 22, said: "We were devastated. We were asking all the possibilities. Was there anything at all that could be done?"
Stacy said she was offered a second opinion and an amniocentesis, at Sunderland Royal, in which amniotic fluid is taken from the womb and tested for chromosomal abnormalities.The couple were referred to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary where consultant foetal expert Dr Stephen Sturgis, they said, confirmed their unborn baby had "fluid on the brain".
It emerged that Jaxon had a condition called fetal ventriculomegaly, where the lateral ventricles of the brain become enlarged.Unemployed shopfitter Lee said: "Dr Sturgis said there was a 60 per cent chance of him being all right and we decided to give our baby that chance."Jaxon was born on December 20, weighing 7lb 13oz, in a planned caesarian section. An MRI scan a few days later showed there was no brain damage.However, he did have to have fluid drained from his brain and has had to undergo a colostomy because of a malformation of part of his digestive system which can be corrected with a future operation.Stacy said: "He's our miracle baby and I'm so glad I followed my mother's instinct."Lee said: "We want other couples to know about the importance of seeking a second opinion.
"What if I wait until Jaxon is better and take him to the hospital to say this is the child that could have been terminated?"I'm not happy about the way we were treated. I think we should have been offered all the options."
Stacy said: "It was amazing just to know that there was no brain damage there at all. But we should never have been put through that.
"To think that a few months earlier we had been told he was 100 per cent brain damaged and what we might have done. You've always got that feeling."
Lee's stepdad, Tony Innes, 44, said: "What really hurts is if Stacy had gone for a termination and found out Jaxon wasn't as bad as they'd said. I experienced the loss of a baby years ago and not knowing what that child would grow up to be like, it could've tortured them."A spokesman for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, Paul Danon, said: "Abortion is offered all too readily as an apparent solution to an apparent problem and is too quickly jumped to as though it was some sort of medical procedure, as if it would make things better."
A spokesman for City Hospitals Sunderland said: "The decision to refer for a second opinion was taken jointly with the parents concerned. These matters are, of course, clinical decisions taken on the evidence available at the time."