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PROFOUNDLY deaf toddler Piper Revere is to have an operation to enable her to hear her mum's voice for the first time.

The 20-month-old will have cochlear implants on June 13 which should allow her to hear and encourage her to speak.

The news comes just days after her father, Simon, 28, jumped 12,000ft from a plane to raise £2,000 for the Moonrakers Deaf Children's Society, which her mum, Kate, helped to set up.

Piper was born weighing just 4lbs with severely underdeveloped lungs after Mrs Revere caught cytomegalovirus, commonly known as CMV or slap cheek, in the first 12 weeks of her pregnancy.

Mrs Revere, 31, originally from Cherhill near Calne, said: "We are thrilled to bits and we are just keeping our fingers crossed.

"Piper has defeated all the odds and has fought through everything life has thrown at her.

"We have never treated her deafness as a disability and the cochlear implants will just give her an option to speak and hear if she wants to - it is still completely up to her.

"She is almost walking, which is amazing as the doctors told us she would never be able to hold her head up let alone move.

"She is a strong willed, beautiful little girl with a sense of humour."

Because Mrs Revere caught CMV in the early stages of pregnancy the risks to Piper could have been fatal.

Thirty-eight weeks into the pregnancy, doctors induced labour and Piper was delivered by an emergency caesarean section. At four days old she was transferred to the Royal London Hospital where she had an operation to repair and thicken her diaphragm in the hope of developing her lungs.

Six weeks later she was allowed home, even though she only weighed 4.6lbs.

Piper has sign language lessons each week so that she can communicate with her parents, who are also learning the technique.

The family, who now live in Farleigh Wick, near Bradford on Avon, helped establish the Moonrakers group, which offers support and advice to other families living in Wiltshire who have deaf children.

The group has arranged a garage sale in Cherhill on May 3 to help raise much needed funds.

For more information on the Moonrakers group and the work that it does, call Mrs Revere on (01225) 867 230.

1:50pm Thursday 17th April 2008

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