Jesy Nelson Shares Hope for Her 8-Month-Old Twins Facing a Challenging Muscle Disease

Jesy Nelson and her twin girls.
Credit :

Jesy Nelson/Instagram; Great Company with Jamie Laing/Youtube

NEED TO KNOW

• Jesy Nelson is hopeful for her baby girls’ futures
• The Little Mix singer welcomed twin girls, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe, in May 2025
• Since then, they have been diagnosed with a rare muscular disorder

Jesy Nelson remains optimistic about the future of her eight-month-old twin daughters, who are currently navigating the challenges of a severe muscular disease.

Weeks after revealing that her daughters, Ocean Jade and Story Monroe, were diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) Type 1, Nelson expressed her belief that they will “defy all the odds” and live beyond the age of two.

During an episode of Jamie Laing’s podcast, Great Company, on February 4, the Little Mix singer shared details about her daughters’ condition. “Spinal muscular atrophy is a muscular wasting disease, and what it does is, well, they don’t have a gene that we all have in our body. So because of that, their muscles are deteriorating and wasting away,” she explained.

Jesy Nelson and Zion Foster with their twin daughters.

Jesy Nelson/Instagram

Nelson and her former fiancé, musician Zion Foster, welcomed their twins prematurely on May 15, 2025, shortly after the singer underwent emergency surgery. Just last month, she announced their diagnosis.

“If you don’t get them treatment in time, eventually the muscles will all just die, which then affects the breathing, the swallowing, everything, and they will die before the age of 2,” she warned during the podcast conversation.

In response to Laing’s expressions of sympathy, Nelson stated, “I just have to accept it, and now I just try and make the best out of this situation.” She emphasized her daughters’ strength, calling them “the strongest, most resilient babies.”

“I really believe that they are going to defy all the odds. I really believe that because they already have. It’s mad. They were in my belly. They had TTTS [Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome],” Nelson recounted.

TTTS is a serious condition affecting twins who share a placenta and a network of blood vessels, which can create nutrient imbalances before birth. “I see everything through a completely different lens ’cause I’m like, they had that, but they also had SMA, and then they just went on to fight it all,” she added.

Nelson discovered her daughters’ SMA diagnosis while they were in the neonatal unit after being born prematurely at 31 weeks due to TTTS.

Jesy Nelson at The O2 Arena on December 11, 2021 in London.
Karwai Tang/WireImage

Full-term pregnancies typically last around 39 to 40 weeks. In an emotional video posted to her Instagram account on January 4, Nelson shared the struggles her family has faced over the past several months. “After the most grueling three, four months, and endless appointments,” she disclosed her daughters’ muscular disorder.

“We were told that they’re probably never gonna be able to walk, they probably will never regain their neck strength so they will be disabled. And so the best thing we can do right now is to get them treatment and then just hope for the best,” she concluded.

Jean Nelson described the previous months as “the most heartbreaking time of my life,” noting that she felt she was “grieving the life I thought I was going to have with my children.” Despite the challenges, she remains grateful that her daughters are alive and encourages other parents to seek medical attention promptly at any signs of illness, stressing that “time is of the essence” when it comes to saving a life.