Roberto D’Angelo & Francesca Fedeli: In our Baby’s Illness, a Life Lesson

Roberto D’Angelo and Francesca Fedeli thought their baby boy Mario was healthy until at 10 days old, they discovered he’d had a perinatal stroke. With Mario unable to control the left side of his body, they grappled with tough questions: Would he be “normal?” Could he live a full life? The poignant story of parents facing their fears and how they turned them around.

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ABOUT Roberto D’Angelo and Francesca Fedeli

“Roberto D’Angelo and Francesca Fedeli are a tech-savvy couple living in Milan, Italy. Roberto is the Office 365 Lead at Microsoft Italy, driving business and marketing strategy for the software while also working on improving Microsoft’s Public Cloud.

Francesca is the head of brand communication and social media at ING Direct Italia. The pair married in 2002 and, in 2011, gave birth to their son, Mario.

At 10 days old, he was diagnosed as having had a perinatal stroke in the right side of his brain. The stroke left him unable to move the left side of his body. The D’Angelos have used mirror neuron rehabilitation to help Mario regain movement, with amazing results.

Today, Mario is 2-years-old and has greatly improved motion. They founded FightTheStroke.org, a Non-Profit to gather and share the experiences of families who have been affected by all types of infant and childhood strokes and to open up a dialogue about the devastating effects of perinatal, neonatal and pediatric strokes. This issue is important to them because they’ve been through it themselves, with Mario.”

The VIDEO