Your stories of having premature babies
Premature birth is a common and serious health problem that affects families up and down the UK. Over the past year, families have been kind enough to share their stories with us to help raise awareness of premature birth.
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We are Gail and Mick and this is the story of the birth of our two wonderful daughters, Sophie and Emily.
The delivery was frantic, at one point there were 14 people assisting – pushing poor Mick to one side as they set about delivering the babies.
Sophie arrived at 11.17pm, weighing in at 3lb 13½ oz and cried straightaway, however Emily was breech, eventually arriving just into the next day weighing 3lbs 6oz – frighteningly she didn’t breathe at first.
After 10 days recovery I went home without them, which felt weird. Mick and I felt so very helpless; it was traumatic to see the girls in incubators with nasogastric tubes.
We couldn’t do all the normal things; they were too small to bath, finding clothes was a struggle and nappies were quite a hurdle too!
After three weeks they were allowed home; but they were so tiny and delicate that everyone was a bit apprehensive about holding them – even us! They looked like tiny dolls.
Today they are very lively and healthy nine-year olds – though Sophie remains the big sister at two inches taller!
Emily had to be checked for hip displacement following her breech birth but fortunately she is OK. However she has had some hearing difficulties, which we put down to her early birth.
We are so grateful to Action Medical Research - Sophie and Emily are here thanks to the medical breakthroughs that the charity has supported in the past.
However, there is much more lifesaving work that the charity wants to do and it’s important that we help their amazing medical teams to do that.
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