Brown charity saves mentor’s grandchild
● John Smith’s daughter Catherine pays tribute to work done at research centre
Gordon Brown and Sarah Brown described how the tragic death of their baby daughter helped save the life of ex-labour leader John Smith’s grandchild.
The former prime minister and his wife revealed they had set up a research lab which “improved the chance of survival” of Mr Smith’s granddaughter after she was born weighing less than 2lb.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah have told how the tragic death of their baby daughter inspired them to set up a research laboratory that helped save the life of the grandchild of his close friend and mentor John Smith.
The couple set up the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory (JBRL) at the University of Edinburgh in tribute to their daughter who died at just ten days old after she was born prematurely at 33 weeks in 2002.
Mr Smith’s daughter, Catherine Smith, 43, revealed work carried out at the research laboratory directly affected the care given to her daughter, Ella Mcconnachie, and improved her chance of survival after she was born at 28 weeks weighing less than 2lb. She is now aged two.
Speaking yesterday at an event to mark 15 years of support for groundbreaking work done at the laboratory, Mr Brown paid tribute to the work carried out by staff and told how the couple had missed out on the key milestones in their daughter’s early life.
He said: “If the laboratory had saved one life then as a parent that would justify every hour of the work you’ve done but to know that many, many lives have been improved as a result of it and many more lives can be improved is a spur, an incentive, indeed it’s the inspiration to make the next 15 years even more successful than the past.
“John Smith was my friend, my colleague, my mentor – our leader – and even after 23 years since he died he is revered in so many parts of the country and sorely missed.”
He added: “Sarah and I never had the joy of experiencing Jennifer taking her first steps or speaking her first words or going to school for the first time, but we have realised after 15 years that out of tragedy some good can come.”
Ms Smith had an emergency Caesarean section after developing Hellp syndrome, an aggressive form of preeclampsia.
While her baby was being cared for, she said “there came a point when Ella was in hospital that I realised that Sarah and Gordon must have been in a ward very similar to the one I was in and suddenly their experience came to life a little bit more, I felt I was able to understand better just the total horror of it.”
She went online to make a contribution to the laborato- ry’s work, and started reading about the “extraordinary” research it has done.
Ms Smith said: “I realised some of the research they had done into the oxygen levels being given to premature babies had impacted directly on Ella’s care and had changed the way doctors treat these small babies and improved her chances of survival.”
Mrs Brown told how she and her husband, were “really caught in the public spotlight” when Jennifer died.
“As difficult as that was, it meant we also received a lot of messages of care and support from members of the public,” she said.
“What was also clear was that not all the reasons why babies are lost in late term, still birth or soon after birth are known. There just isn’t an explanation. So it was clear to us, if we were to make any sense of this tragedy, that it was to harness that understanding to best effect.”
There can be few who have forgotten a beaming Gordon Brown, then the Labour Chancellor, telling the world of his joy at the birth of his baby daughter Jennifer in December 2001.
Then tragedy hit and Mr Brown and his wife Sarah had to contend with the death of their premature baby girl, aged just ten days.
Losing one’s child is something every parent fears and dreads, and which sadly, sometimes cannot be prevented.
But yesterday, almost 15 years after Jennifer’s death, the Browns made a special visit to the world-renowned Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory in Edinburgh, where instead of sadness there were tales of joy at the premature babies who had been given the chance of life due to the ground-breaking work carried out by the laboratory’s scientists.
Thanks to their work, including examining how much oxygen should be given to babies in incubators, an increasing number of premature babies, these tiny scraps of humanity, are not just being kept alive, they are also being given the chance of a better quality of life.
All of this is a testament to the courage displayed by the Browns who channelled their grief to help others and their dedication in supporting the work the laboratory does and their ceaseless fundraising to enable the work to continue.
By ensuring the research is undertaken they have made sure some good has come from the loss of Jennifer.
Premature birth is a major problem all over the world, but as Catherine Smith spoke of the care received by her daughter Ella, the Browns can be assured their daughter has left the legacy of life for other babies.