Leamington baby’s tale of survival brings hope for others

And his mum Fran Jones is encouraging other parents of premature babies to follow her blog, which follows the progress of six-month-old Oliver, who weighed just 2lb 1oz when he was born in May, when Fran was just 25 weeks into her pregancy.

At seven weeks old, Oliver developed a serious bowel condition, necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), which bloated his stomach, causing his lungs to collapse. He needed a ventilator to support his breathing and was then transferred to Leicester Royal Infirmary for emergency surgery. Fran and her husband Paul were told that he may not make the journey - and even if he did, his chances of surviving a major operation were slim.

Fran said: “We said goodbye to Oliver and made our way to Leicester not knowing if he would survive the journey. It was one of the worst journeys of our lives.”

Thankfully, Oliver survived - but after two weeks in critical care, he developed more complications and had to go through a second round of surgery, which he also pulled through successfully.

The little baby has also developed eye problems and he is still being fed intravenously in hospital.

Fran, Paul and their five-year-old daughter Ella celebrated Oliver’s milestone of reaching 100 days on September 4, the day he was due to be born.

Fran said: “We’d hoped to have Oliver home for his due date, then his dad’s birthday in October and then Christmas. We have now been told it will be several more months yet.

“We are now waiting for a bed to become available at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where Oliver’s liver can be monitored better as his jaundice levels are high. Once his stoma is reversed, we will hopefully have a better idea of how well he will be able to absorb food - and when we can finally get our little baby boy home.”

The children’s charity Action Medical Research is funding research to develop a new test to help identify babies with NEC so they can receive treatment sooner and reduce the chances of the disease becoming life threatening.

Dr Caroline Johnston, research evaluation manager for the charity, said: “Each year in the UK, around 3,000 babies develop NEC and tragically around 35 per cent of these babies die. Doctors and nurses must be constantly on the lookout for symptoms, as premature babies can develop the disease at any time, with little or no warning.”

To find out more about the NEC study, visit www.action.org.uk/necrotising_enterocolitis

To follow Fran’s blog, visit oliverjonesmummy.wordpress.com