This breaking news is over a month old, from back in mid to late June. The child is not 6-12 months old, he's over 4 years old. And none of the reports I've seen have said anything about the mother being involved in stem cell research.
Here's a few news articles:
http://www.theage.com.au/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
http://my.webmd.com/
Basically, the child is lacking a gene that creates a protein called myostatin in the muscles, and this leads to extemely well developed muscles. The effect has been known in mice for some time, but this is the first known case in a human, and they're hoping it will lead to treatment for diseases like muscular dystrophy.
A very cool bit of news, even if the details were a bit off.