Tuesday, 28 June 2011, 9:00PM – 10:00PM
The third film in the series focuses on extremely premature babies, who have been born as much as 16 weeks early. Ten years ago babies born at 24 weeks gestation survived for only a few hours, today they have a chance. But the reality is it’s only a 50-50 chance.
These are the babies who weigh less than a pound, half a bag of sugar. Their skin is only a cell thick, and they are highly vulnerable to infection and complications of prematurity – such as brain bleeds, and problems with their lungs, kidneys, heart and bowels.
Dr Chris Dewhurst says: “With our pre term babies people often think they are just born small and completely perfect, but tiny, and all we need to do is fatten them up and get them out of the neonatal unit.
“But actually the problem with them is all their organ systems are immature and our work is not about fattening them up, but needing to support them.”
The film follows the moving stories of these tiny babies clinging to life as the doctors battle to save them, while their distraught parents can only wait and hope.
Dr Mark Turner says:
“People are afraid their child is going to die and that’s an upsetting thing. Most mothers are worried about the suffering their children have to go through, and an intensive care unit is somewhere people often feel pain and discomfort. But you need to do that to get through.
“I think many parents do feel uncomfortable that they can’t cuddle their child, can’t hold their hand and their child is going through pain and suffering without their parents by the side.”
The parents of baby Mohammed, Amani and Riad, face a bill of £175,000 for his care in the Neonatal Unit. They were on holiday from their home in Kuwait to visit family in Liverpool when mum went into labour at 25 weeks. They have had to take unpaid leave from their jobs, they had no insurance ad must stay indefinitely while their son receives vital treatment. They hope the Kuwaiti Government can help them to pay the medical bill.
Kate and Pete Adams Moor’s son Louie was born 16 weeks early weighing just one pound. Kate was rushed to the Neonatal Unit from her home in Birmingham when she suddenly went into labour.
Kate says: “Because he was so small my natural instinct was that he wouldn’t survive. But the midwife gave me a hug and said he was OK, and the doctor said he had a strong heartbeat. To go from thinking he wasn’t alive to hear that he has a heartbeat was amazing.”
Louie is doing well until he contracts an infection which leaves him critically ill. The doctors and nurses battle to save him, but sadly without success.
Kate and Pete decide to mark Louie’s due date on March 25th by getting married.
Kate says: “We didn’t want to be sat around on the 25th March every year thinking what if.
What if he’d survived, or what if he’d gone to full term.
“We just wanted everybody around us on Louie’s day in a celebration, so that every year we could look back with happy memories and fond memories, and have memories of a celebration rather than every year having a day that was sombre.”