Georgia boy with Down syndrome to be featured in OshKosh holiday ads

After getting word of a Georgia mom’s campaign to spread awareness of children with disabilities, OshKosh B’Gosh met with her family, and now their son, who has Down syndrome, will be part of the children’s clothing company’s holiday advertising campaign.

In July, Meagan Nash, 27, of Buford, Georgia, had submitted photos of her son Asher to an advertising agency working with OshKosh, but the agency told her that the company wasn’t looking for babies with special needs. After photos of the 15-month-old went viral, the Atlanta-based company reached out to Nash, and she and Asher met with the CEO of Carter’s, Michael D. Casey, as well as other company executives, on Oct. 25. OshKosh B’Gosh is a subsidiary of Carter’s.

The company asked Asher to participate in an upcoming photoshoot for their holiday campaign, which will be run on their website, social channels and email marketing blasts, an OshKosh B’Gosh company spokesperson told FoxNews.com.

“I’m still trying to process what happened, but I’m so happy with the outcome,” Nash told FoxNews.com. “They didn’t have to pick Asher. The point was for them to start using and including people with disabilities.”

Nash spoke with the executives about Asher’s story and the challenges facing children with disabilities. Asher was delighted to meet new people.

“He’s just so happy when he’s around people; he loves the attention,” Nash said. “They saw that firsthand. When he walked into the meeting, both hands were up and waving, and by the end he was blowing kisses and didn’t want to leave. It was nice of them to see what I’ve been saying about Asher.”

Nash and her husband. David, 31, found out their son had Down syndrome 12 weeks into the pregnancy, which was Nash’s second. Their daughter, Addison, 8, is Asher’s best friend, and even got her classmates to wear blue and yellow in honor of October being Down Syndrome Awareness Month, Nash said.

“We didn’t know what do think, what to do,” Nash recalled of learning their son’s diagnosis.

Down syndrome, a condition in which a person has an extra chromosome, impacts brain and body development, affecting 1 out of 700 babies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Nashes dove into researching, and preparing themselves and their friends and family. Looking back, Meagan Nash would have approached Asher’s diagnosis differently.

“If I knew what I know now before he was born, I wouldn’t have researched a thing,” she said. “I tell people all the time— he’s just a baby.”

Thanks to help from therapists and doctors— he’s had a physical therapist since he was 2 months old— Asher has hit his main milestones of holding his head up, sitting up, and crawling within the range of typical babies and those with Down syndrome. Down syndrome babies have a longer range for their milestones, Nash explained.

Now, he’s almost walking, and while many parents worry about that developmental stage and everything it brings, Asher’s parents are actively encouraging him as much as they can, knowing how difficult it is for him.

Nash is looking forward to seeing her son’s OshKosh photos. OshKosh B’Gosh has also invited Asher to participate in a casting call and photoshoot in March.

“We’re probably going to frame [the photos],” she said. “We are very happy. People look at people with disabilities differently, and the goal is to see them the same as everybody else.”