If wasn’t for two wouldn’t be here’

by the charity Remember My Baby, but only received 2,679 signatures of the 100,000 needed to spark a debate in parliament.

Mum-of-three Jane, 43, who lives in Wingham Well, said: “It’s so wrong that babies born before 24 weeks don’t get a birth certificate or resuscitated if they don’t take a breath. They just get called a miscarriage, which is awful when you have given birth to a perfectly formed baby.

“If Jacob hadn’t given two tiny gasps of breath, he would not have been revived. But he is living proof that they can make it at 23 weeks and babies should be given the chance, and definitely a birth certificate, even if they don’t pull through.”

Jacob was on a ventilator for three months, underwent a tracheotomy at Great Ormond Street Hospital and spent 11 months in the now-closed special care baby unit at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

After a struggle in his early childhood, he is now a healthy and happy outgoing teenager, although has some special needs as a result of his premature birth.

He hopes to secure a job working outdoors and already helps his stepfather, Les, with his landscape gardening business. He goes to the Fifth Trust charity scheme at Barham, and Skillnet in Canterbury, where he drums in a band with friends. He celebrated his birthday with his first beer and an Indian buffet at home with friends and family.

Jane, a former nanny, has two daughters with Les – BoeWillow, three, and two-year-old Summer. But she admits she was scared of falling pregnant again.

She said: “It frightened me for a long time because of what happened with Jacob. I went into labour so prematurely but fortunately I had normal pregnancies with my daughters.

“I just hope the campaign leads to a change of heart by the government and they will look again at the law so that every baby born before 24 weeks gets a birth certificate and there is a formal record of their existence.”