At week 20 of her pregnancy – Amy Palmer was offered a termination.

“They found something wasn’t quite right with Maisie,” she told News Shopper. “She had no diaphragm, meaning there was no room for her lungs to grow.”

Amy, 32, adamantly refused to terminate her baby.

Maisie is now four, after being born with a rare condition called congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Her mum explained: “She has a hole in her diaphragm, which then made her liver and bowel to go in to the chest cavity, therefore compromising the space for her lungs to grow. She now has a feeding tube in her tummy called a mini button.

“She can do everything a normal four-year-old does but she doesn’t have two full lungs so she burns a lot more calories.”

Little Maisie was born on December 16 – and on Boxing Day she had an operation to pull her organs down and to replace her diaphragm.

In September – Maisie will start at Langley Park Primary in West Wickham, and mum Amy is wary about sending her child to school.

“Not all disabilities are visible,” she said. “I’m so nervous. Nobody else has ever looked after her and she gets tired very quickly.

“I do not know how it will work yet, but the school is aware of her condition.”

Small issues for most children, like tummy bugs or a cold, result in Maisie having to spend days in hospital.

However, Amy said her daughter is “just like any other four-year-old and you would never know anything was wrong”.

Amy is also mum to Billy, 13 and Toby, five.

“Maisie going to school will be quite hard for me,” Amy added. “She is great though. She isn’t nervous because she doesn’t know any different.

“She has had the mini button tube since she was one-years-old.”

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia affects one in 2,500 people.