The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Heartbroken mum tells of pain of losing her son
Ethan was only five weeks old when he succumbed to the disease
An Angus mum has bravely opened up about the devastation of losing her fiveweek-old son to meningitis in a bid to raise awareness of the condition.
Maria Strachan, from Forfar, became unwell toward the end of her pregnancy, suffering from high temperatures, sickness and contractions.
Her condition led the 25-year-old to be induced three weeks before her due date at the maternity unit at Ninewells Hospital.
Initially Ethan appeared healthy when he was born in the morning of April 8 last year.
But just a few hours later, while being changed, Maria noticed her newborn was breathing strangely and rapidly.
She immediately told a nurse and Ethan was rushed to the intensive care unit at Ninewells.
“Eventually we got a call that we could go and see Ethan,” said Maria.
“He was in an incubator and had been stripped down with a feeding tube in his mouth. As the days went by our little boy didn’t seem to get much better.”
Doctors initially thought Ethan had an infection but when he didn’t improve after a couple of days he underwent further tests.
It was then they discovered he had viral meningitis that had attacked his heart muscle. It meant his heart was unable to work properly and he was unable to breathe for himself.
He was transferred to Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children where he was sedated and given a 50/50 chance of survival.
“I was devastated that my illness during pregnancy had resulted in Ethan contracting viral meningitis, which had spread through his body and heart,” said Maria.
“Consultants explained that Ethan was extremely sick and that his heart wasn’t pumping the way it should be, so they put him on a life support machine. We were warned to expect the worse.”
Ethan fought on and had some good and some bad days during a three-week stay in the hospital but then contracted another infection and started to deteriorate quickly.
Maria and her partner, James Mortimer, who have two other children, had the agonising choice of whether to send Ethan to Newcastle for a heart transplant or take him off life support and let him die in peace.
“It would have been very, very unlikely there would be a heart his size for such a tiny sick baby like Ethan, and even if there was they didn’t think he would survive the operation,” Maria said.
“We decided that as heart-breaking as it was, the best thing for our little boy was to let him rest in peace in his mummy and daddy’s arms, and take the pain that he had been suffering for five weeks away from him.
Maria said she wanted to share her story to raise awareness of meningitis and support the work of the charity Meningitis Now which funds research into vaccines and prevention.
“Something needs to be done to support parents with a loss from meningitis and more awareness is needed,” she said.