Hans Christian Andersen settled his Thumbelina in Denmark, but in fact she lives in a small village near the English port city of Hull. Charlotte Garside's height, however, is not 1 inch (2.54 cm) like that of the fairytale heroine, invented by the great storyteller, but as much as 22 (55.88 cm), but she is smaller than most of her dolls
The two-year-old Englishwoman suffers from a rare disease - primordial nanism, but she retains a friendliness and cheerfulness of character.
The smallest girl in the world lives with her parents and three older sisters, who were born completely healthy and are developing like normal children. The British Thumbelina is no more than 22 inches (55.88 cm) tall at the age of two, and doctors warned her parents that she most likely will not grow any more. Charlotte Garside suffers from a rare disease called primordial nanism (dwarfism) - there are no more than 100 people with this disease worldwide.
“The doctors told us that our daughter, apparently, has primordial nanism, but clarified that Charlotte has some kind of a special type of this disease - it is likely that she is the only person on the planet with such a disease,” says her mother, Emma Newman (Emma Newman).
The girl was born 4 weeks ahead of schedule, but at first her parents did not suspect anything bad. “We only noticed that she was very tiny - the newborn clothes we bought for her were too big for Charlotte. But then the doctors told us that she had a serious congenital anomaly,”continues Emma Newman. The child was born with a weight of only 482 grams, but the doctors managed to get her out. At the age of two, she weighs like a normal newborn child - 3 kilograms 400 grams.
The girl also had serious defects in the Achilles tendon on both legs - she can only move in a walker or crawl. But the doctors promised to correct this defect with a surgical operation a little later, when the child is at least a little older. She cannot eat on her own, and her parents and older sisters feed her through a special gastric tube.
However, the girl grows up as a very cheerful child, loves to play with dolls, some of which are noticeably larger than her. Charlotte attends a private kindergarten twice a week, where she has many friends. “We hope she can attend regular school when the time is right,” says her mother, Emma Newman.