Grieving dad in awareness drive

A FATHER grieving the loss of his baby son has spoken of the rare condition which led to his death.

Rishton couple Jason Robson and Gemma Taylor welcomed Dylan Jay Taylor Robson into the world on March 31, but he only survived six weeks.

Jason and Gemma, both 28, were told at the 20-week scan that Dylan had hypoplastic right heart syndrome, meaning the right ventricle of his heart wasn’t developing properly.

They were given the option to terminate the pregnancy, but Jason said: “We were not going to give up on Dylan.”

Dylan was born at Manchester St Mary’s Hospital and spent a week there, before being transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool.

He underwent surgery to have a stent inserted into his heart to increase blood flow to the right side, but it failed and he then had to have open heart surgery at just eight days old.

Jason said: “It was such a big operation for such a small boy. The second surgery seemed to work, but he was put on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine – a heart and lung bypass where they rest the heart and lungs to help him.”

Sadly Dylan then took a turn for the worse. Doctors told the family that there was nothing more could be done and he passed away in his mother’s arms on May 11.

Jason, who lives with Gemma and their first son Aidan, is now on a mission to raise awareness of hypoplastic right heart syndrome and fundraise for Ronald Mcdonald House.

He said: “Ronald McDonald House made our time with him so much easier than having to commute 100 miles every day to be with Dylan. I’ve lived in Accrington most of my life and would like to get knowledge of Dylan’s condition to the town I love. We never gave up and neither did he.”