Woman who discovered she was pregnant while having scans for Alzheimer’s now doesn’t recognise her newborn daughter

But when Rebecca Doig gave birth to her first child last week, she was tragically indifferent.

The 31-year- old has a rare form of Alzheimer’s that has advanced so rapidly during her pregnancy that she can no longer recognise her baby daughter Emily.

Mrs Doig  –  who is thought to be one of the first women to give birth at such a late stage of the disease  –  is unable to look after herself and instead relies on round-the-clock care.

Her husband Scott, a council worker, said: ‘She has gone from being an independent, outgoing and bright young woman to someone who doesn’t recognise her own newborn daughter. The road ahead is going to be extremely difficult, there’s no two ways about it.

‘We just take every day as it comes because there’s not a lot we can do about it. I have a wife and now a little girl to look after. But she is my life and I am not giving up on her.’

He said that the couple, who live in Sydney, Australia, first realised there was a problem when Mrs Doig began to forget where she had put everyday items such as her handbag and began to isolate herself from her friends and family.

It was during tests to determine the cause of her memory loss, that she discovered she was pregnant last August.

However, the couple’s happiness was shattered just days later when doctors diagnosed Mrs Doig with Familial Alzheimer’s, a form of early-onset dementia.

Although the condition is similar to the more common type that strikes the elderly, it can cause very rapid memory loss, with sufferers within months. There is no known cure. Read More