Just four months old, Kylie Overfield was battling an extremely rare lung condition and waiting for a life-saving double lung transplant.

Born on November 10, 2023, in Richmond, Virginia, Kylie spent her entire life in hospitals from the moment she entered the world. Her mother, Ashley Overfield, immediately sensed something was wrong. “As soon as they took her out, they put her on my chest, and she started turning purple. I started freaking out and got the nurse,” she recalled.

After transfers between multiple hospitals, doctors diagnosed Kylie with surfactant protein B (SP-B) deficiency—a rare genetic disorder that affects roughly one in a million newborns worldwide. The condition prevents the lungs from producing enough surfactant, a substance that keeps the air sacs open. Without it, the lungs collapse with every breath, leading to severe respiratory failure. Life expectancy without a transplant is typically only three to six months. Hospice care was recommended early on.

Ashley refused to give up. “I didn’t want to do that because I don’t want to hold my baby as she takes her last breaths. And I’m not going to stop fighting for her. As long as she’s fighting, I’m going to fight,” she said. Kylie already exceeded expectations by surviving past the initial grim projections.

In January 2024, the family relocated from Virginia to Houston so Kylie could be evaluated and listed for transplant at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the leading centers in the United States for pediatric lung transplants. At the time, she was among only about 20 children nationwide awaiting a lung transplant. Finding suitably sized infant lungs remained the greatest challenge.

On April 17, 2024—when Kylie was just five months old—a donor match became available. Surgeons performed a complex, roughly 11- to 12-hour double lung transplant. During the same operation, they also repaired holes found in her heart. The procedure was especially difficult due to her tiny size; only a few dozen lung transplants had ever been performed on infants under one year old in the U.S.

The surgery succeeded. For the first time in her life, Kylie began breathing on her own. She recovered steadily, learning to hold her head up, smile, and act like a typical baby making up for lost time. By late summer 2024, around 10 months of age, she was discharged and returned home to Virginia, where her mother described the experience as still feeling “like a dream.”

Kylie’s story highlighted both the fragility of life with rare genetic lung diseases and the critical importance of organ donation. Pediatric lung transplants remain rare and technically demanding, yet they offer the only realistic chance of survival for infants with conditions such as SP-B deficiency.

Her journey inspired widespread attention to the need for more donors, particularly for the smallest patients.

Sources

• FOX 26 Houston reporting (March 2024 initial coverage of the wait for transplant; June 2024 update on successful surgery)
• ABC News / Good Morning America (May 2024 report on Kylie breathing independently after transplant)
• WWBT / 12 On Your Side (Richmond, Virginia local coverage of diagnosis, transfer, surgery, recovery, and return home)
• Texas Children’s Hospital statements and related medical context on pediatric lung transplants and surfactant protein B deficiency