‘ We came home with two car seats but only one baby. Time doesn’t heal the pain
A month after this joyous picture, one of Hayley twins died of whooping cough — all because she wasn’t offered the pregnancy booster jab
WHEN Hayley Drew discovered she was pregnant with twins, she was over the moon. The path to the pregnancy hadn’t been straightforward — her husband had to have a vasectomy reversed, then she’d undergone IVF.
But, miraculously, this worked after just one cycle, the pregnancy and labour went smoothly, and then she delivered two ‘ beautifully perfect’ and healthy babies. Her joy at the birth of Isabella and Ella is written all over the picture you see here. But 29 days later, Isabella (Bella) Rosa Drew was dead from pertussis — whooping cough.
This highly infectious illness is currently spreading like wildfire, causing a crippling cough in adults that can last for months, but can be life-threatening for babies. Last week, the news of six babies’ deaths as a result of the current wave made for shocked headlines across the
‘She was f loppy and I was starting to panic’
UK — and prompted Hayley to speak for the first time in depth about her loss.
Bella died three days after being admitted to hospital. To say Hayley is heartbroken is an understatement. ‘We came home with two car seats but only one baby,’ says the 49-year- old from Bawtry in South Yorkshire. ‘I then had to break the news to my other children.’ Her husband, devastated, went back to work that very night. ‘ He left me after three months — he said I’d changed. I had changed — my little girl had died.’
The idea that other parents are now going through something similar is devastating. ‘I want to reach out to those mums — I know how much pain they will be in. I’m angry that somebody’s going through the same agony and another child has been lost unnecessarily.’ She also wants mums-to-be to understand what is at risk.
‘You don’t just lose the baby. You lose their life with you: their first tooth, their first day at school. Their GCSEs. Their prom. I did see a smile, but didn’t get to hear Bella giggle. Or know what her voice sounds like. You lose everything.’
The tragedy is that babies should not be dying of whooping cough. Yet more deaths are expected — the six that have been reported by the UK Health Security Agency in this surge in whooping cough are for the period up to the end of March. And it’s thought cases are going to remain high in the coming months.
Very young babies are particularly at risk as the first of the childhood immunisation jabs — against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT) — is not given until eight weeks. That’s why their mothers are offered a booster vaccine from 16 weeks to 32 weeks of pregnancy: the antibodies pass across the placenta to protect the baby in those early vulnerable weeks.
It’s a very effective form of protection, cutting the number of deaths by two thirds (and in nearly all of those deaths since the vaccine programme began, the mothers had not had the booster).
Hayley is desperate to help others avoid tragedies such as hers, and is calling on mums-to-be to get the whooping cough jab in pregnancy.
When Bella died in 2014, it was a full two years after the maternal vaccine was introduced. But Hayley wasn’t offered it.
Bella and Ella were much wanted, planned babies. Hayley and her husband had married in the summer of 2013, and were keen to start a family together. But as he’d had a vasectomy 13 years earlier, first this had to be reversed and because of her age — Hayley was 39 — they were also advised to go for IVF.
On the first round they were pregnant with twins.
She delivered the girls on August 11, 2014, at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. ‘ They came quickly, with Bella first, at just under 5 lbs, and then nine minutes later, Ella at 4 lbs, so they were good birth weights. It was just a perfect delivery. Everything was perfect.’
Hayley’s three- year- old daughter, Jodie, had been suffering from a cough and cold in the weeks before. ‘She had been vomiting after coughing. She’d sit bolt upright at night coughing and go purple with it.’
But because she’d had all her vaccines, her mother assumed it was just one of many coughs children get, if a nasty one. The GP prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection and an inhaler.
Hayley and the twins remained in hospital as the team wanted to make sure feeding was going well and the babies were gaining weight. But in the days following the birth, Hayley developed a cough. She has asthma and thought she was getting a chest infection.
‘The staff said it’d be quicker if I got a taxi from the hospital to my GP ten miles away and came back, rather than seeing a doctor on the ward.’ Her GP diagnosed pleurisy (inflammation around the lungs) and prescribed antibiotics.
‘I was that poorly I remember the midwife didn’t wake me up to express. She let me sleep through.’
After ten days, Hayley and the twins were discharged. ‘ Life was just amazing. I already had three girls. And then we brought our twin daughters home.’
The three girls, Jodie, Holly, then six, and April, nine (who have a different father), were there to greet them. The girls were so excited they had decorated the front door with pink ribbons and a handdrawn sign and pictures.
Hayley’s mother, who lives in the U.S., had come to help, and life soon settled into a routine. Even early on, the twins’ different characters were emerging: ‘Bella was quiet, gentle and relaxed,’ says Hayley. ‘While Ella was, and is, feisty — full of beans and constantly on the go.’
Just 20 days after the twins’ birth, Hayley celebrated her 40th birthday with her family, including her sons, Jack, then 18, and Sam, 17.
‘I remember trying to feel happy because I’ve got all my children and my family. But I just felt so dreadfully poorly still and tired. I thought it was because we were looking after the twins.’
On September 7, Hayley and her mother went out shopping with the twins. It was a Friday and, by the time that Hayley’s husband, who worked as a therapist in the south of England during the week, came home that night,
Bella had a bit of a cough and a runny nose. That night, Hayley slept next to Ella, with Bella in another room with her father. ‘The next morning, he said that she had slept right through, and I was joking with him saying I was jealous — I was up all night with Ella.’
But then Bella didn’t want to feed, so her father took her to hospital. ‘They said she was fine and explained that she wasn’t feeding because she was jaundiced,’ says Hayley. ‘She was blocked up and they advised him to get some saline solution for her nose. I’ve still got it — I can’t get rid of it.’
The next morning when Hayley was undressing Bella, something wasn’t right. ‘She was floppy and I was starting to panic. She just wouldn’t wake up.’
While Hayley stayed with the other children, Bella’s father took her to hospital.
At this point, for the first time in our interview, Hayley’s voice breaks as the recollections of that terrible weekend return. ‘If I get upset, it’s because I haven’t said this for a long time, OK?’
She tells me that her husband stayed with Bella and, later that night, rang to say the doctors wanted to do a lumbar puncture.
‘I didn’t know exactly what that was, but I knew it was serious.’
On Monday morning, after taking the children to school and leaving Ella with her mother, Hayley went straight to the hospital. During the night, Bella had been struggling to breathe and needed oxygen. ‘There were lots of doctors around her. One consultant asked me what everyone’s health was like at home.’
Hayley explained she and Jodie had a cough. She was asked if she’d had the whooping cough vaccine while pregnant.
‘When I said no he looked at another doctor — I’ll never forget his face when I said that.’
During the pregnancy Hayley had been under consultant-led antenatal care with frequent check-ups as some of her children had been born prematurely. But at a nine-week pregnancy ‘booking’ appointment, where the whooping cough vaccine is usually discussed, a later hospital report found that there was no evidence this happened in her case.
At 32 weeks, when a health visitor asked if she’d had the whooping cough vaccine, Hayley said she didn’t know she’d had to have one (it hadn’t been offered with her earlier pregnancies).
The health visitor said to bring it up at the next hospital appointment — but the following week, the midwife went to enquire about this and then told Hayley that Doncaster ‘didn’t do it’.
‘I will never forgive myself for just accepting her word. I didn’t even Google it.’
With Bella clearly unwell, now diagnosed with whooping cough, the doctors told her parents she might need to be transferred to Sheffield Children’s Hospital. ‘But I’m still thinking it’s just a cough,’ says Hayley. ‘I didn’t have a clue. We went to have a coffee. I didn’t think in a few hours I was going to lose her,’ Hayley’s voice chokes at the memory.
Hayley’s husband had to go to work, but before he left, Hayley asked a nurse how serious the situation was. ‘ She said Bella was going to be OK. And that if my husband needed to come back, we’d be told.’
In fact, later that day, Bella’s condition worsened and she was sedated and put on a ventilator. Hayley realised just how sick Bella was, but while highly anxious about it, had no idea of what was about to come. Then two members of the child retrieval team arrived: they specialise in providing care for the sickest children who need to be transferred to paediatric intensive care units. Reality set in. ‘They said she’s as poorly as a baby could ever be. And I asked; “I’m not going to lose her, am I”?’
Today, ten years on, Hayley can hardly say the words to me, she’s crying so much.
The team said they didn’t know, and that Hayley needed to get her husband back — and now Ella needed to come in to be tested for pertussis. Hayley’s mother brought Ella — then Bella was put into an ambulance, Hayley with her, and taken to Sheffield.
‘In the ambulance, Bella was naked and covered in wires. I got PTSD over this: this is what I used to see in my head all the time afterwards. I remember the driver saying to the transfer doctor, “Do you want the lights and siren on”? And they said yes. They said to me, “You only need to worry if we’re worried; if we have to pull over.”
‘ I prayed so hard in the ambulance. There were a couple of times I knew they were worried about her because things were going off and I found out later they thought they’d lost her.’
When they arrived at the hospital ‘there were maybe six doctors around her, and I remember a female doctor looked at me and said, “Ma’am, she’s dying”.’
Hayley’s husband arrived just in time. They had Bella baptised and then they were told that their tiny baby was going to have ‘a massive’ cardiac arrest and that everything was shutting down. ‘Her brain was damaged. So we made the decision to turn off the machines. We were only there about an hour. Then they put Bella in my arms, and she was gone.’
Hayley and Ella had to stay in the children’s hospital for three days for monitoring. ‘I was like a zombie awake feeding Ella.’ Swabs confirmed that Ella, thankfully, didn’t have whooping cough, but they came back positive for Hayley and Jodie. The whole family was tested: her father-in law who’d travelled to see Bella, also had symptoms and tested positive.
‘I had to make a decision whether Bella should be cremated or buried, and I thought she was born perfect. I wanted her to be buried perfect.’ It was six weeks until the funeral. But Hayley doesn’t remember any of that time.
At the inquest into Bella’s death, in July 2015, Hayley said she learned there were 18 missed opportunities when she could have been given the vaccine.
She says she became ‘paranoid’ about warning others — ‘ every pregnant woman I saw, even strangers, I’d say, please make sure you get the pertussis vaccine. Most of the time, they don’t know about it and say they don’t need it. And I say, “Yeah, you do. It’s so important”.’ She still does this even now.
Life changed dramatically for Hayley and her family. Both parents struggled with the tragic death of their baby, and the marriage didn’t survive. Hayley’s mother stayed for the next year: ‘She said that she didn’t just lose her granddaughter, she lost her daughter.’
Hayley is honest about the depths of grief Bella’s death plunged her into. ‘I wanted to be with Bella. I didn’t want her to be cold.’ She was diagnosed with severe PTSD. ‘ If I saw an ambulance, I’d be on the floor because it would take me back to being there. I could hear that doctor keep telling me, “Ma’am, she’s dying”, all the time, playing in my head, and the bad dreams. It was just horrendous.
‘I’m still on antidepressants. I don’t think I’ll ever come off them, but I don’t care if they get me through the day.’
Her children were also profoundly affected. ‘Holly was six at the time and every time she got poorly — she would say, “Am I going to die?”. She didn’t want me to leave her or go anywhere. That went on for a few years.’ ‘I miss Bella,’ says Hayley. ‘I know I’ve got Ella, who is so full of life and character, and I know that she lives on in Ella. But I should have two and it makes me
The doctor said, “Ma’am, she’s dying”’
‘Bella was perfect, she shouldn’t have died’
so angry. Bella was perfect. She shouldn’t have had this disease.’
Hayley says her children have been her saviours. ‘I didn’t want Bella to be on her own, but I knew that the kids needed me. So that’s what kept me here.’
She knows that Ella has cried at school about missing Bella, but has said she can’t talk to her mum about it because it might upset her. ‘But Ella will often say, “Do you think Bella would have had dark hair, Mummy, or will it have gone blonde like mine?”’
‘We all feel Bella’s still very much with us. She’s at the cemetery next door to my children’s school. We love going to see her and I like spending time with her.’
In 2017, Hayley gave birth to a daughter, Annabella. ‘She was such a miracle baby, and she’s made my heart smile again and gave me something to focus on. She saved me. She was a gift from Bella for sure,’ she says.
Karen Jessop, chief nurse at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals, said: ‘On behalf of the Trust, I share my condolences with Isabella’s family. A detailed audit was carried out in 2014, and a number of safety measures were introduced to ensure mothers and babies are protected against whooping cough.’
Yet despite the risks, across the country the maternal vaccine uptake has fallen from 74.7 per cent in 2017 to 59.5 per cent in 2024. In some areas it’s down to 36 per cent.
Hayley’s message to women is direct and personal: ‘Please get the vaccine; it’s so important to protect your unborn child. Whooping cough can be fatal. Had I received the vaccine my baby would not have died.
‘Time doesn’t heal — you just learn to live with the pain.’