Birth-trauma son beat the odds to become healthy toddler
WHEN Noah Williams was born with serious lung problems doctors advised his parents to have him baptised as there was nothing more they could do for him.
Left fighting for his life due to labour complications, doctors did not think he would even survive the 10-mile journey to receive specialist care.
But against all the odds, Noah is now a happy, healthy two-year-old – hailed by his parents Frances and Martin Williams as a “little miracle”. Mrs Williams, 32, said: “No one expected this outcome.“He’s so happy and I feel so blessed to have him.”
The family’s nightmare began when Noah was born at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, unable to breathe.
He had suffered from severe meconium aspiration – caused when a baby ingests its own waste during birth, clogging up the airways.
Doctors battled for hours to get him breathing on a ventilator, before deciding that Noah’s only chance was to be transferred to Glasgow’s Yorkhill Hospital.
Mrs Williams said: “They kept saying he’s very poorly. But it still didn’t register how serious it was.
“It was only when they said, ‘if baptism is important to you, you should do that now’, that it hit hard that this was serious and my baby was dying.
“I felt like I had been punched in the stomach and we found out much later that the doctors didn’t think he was going to make it to Yorkhill.”
Noah was linked up to a special life-support machine called ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) and after ten weeks in Yorkhill was transferred to the city’s Southern General, before finally being allowed home at 14 weeks.
Before they left the hospital the Martins were warned that their son may never walk or talk.
But now after watching him running outside with his sisters, Niamh, seven, and Sophia, five, Mrs Williams said: “I am the luckiest mum. He’s my little miracle.”