LITTLE FIGHTER WAS SIZE OF DAD’S HAND
Miracle baby’s home for Xmas
MEET the real-life festive miracle – the premature baby sent home from hospital in time for Christmas after a gruelling fight for life.
Layla Daly arrived three months before her due date. She was just 1lb 9oz and smaller than her dad’s hand.
Parents Vicky Russell, 27, and Scott Daly, 30, were first told she wouldn’t make it, due to her underdeveloped lungs.
Layla underwent 11 blood transfusions and her early arrival meant some of her digestive organs started to die. She pulled through after a number of operations but then contracted sepsis.
She was forced to battle back from the brink of death three times and for 115 days the hospital was her home.
But after a troubling time for the family, Layla is finally home and preparing for her first Christmas.
Mum Vicky said: “There have been so many times where we’ve been told that our little girl wasn’t going to make it, so we feel incredibly lucky she’s here with us. And to be able to bring her home in time for Christmas is just magical.”
Vicky and Scott, from Melksham, Wilts, had always wanted a family but worried they might not be able to have children because she had lupus. They waited four years until Vicky was in remission. Just three weeks later, she was pregnant.
Sadly her pregnancy was far from smooth sailing.
She was in and out of hospital with hyperemesis gravidarum, the severe morning sickness suffered by Princess Kate.
And then the baby’s 16-week scan brought more bad news.
Vicky, a former retail assistant, said: “They spotted calcifications – spots on our baby’s liver.
“They talked about the possibility of our daughter having CMV, Down syndrome or cystic fibrosis.
“To say we were distraught is an understatement.
“They talked about termination but I was 21 weeks pregnant. I didn’t want that option. But I still had to think about it as I didn’t want her to suffer all her life.”
Just two weeks later, as she waited for follow-up scans, Vicky’s waters broke. She was rushed to Southmead Hospital in Bristol, but medics managed to stave off labour and Layla remained in the womb.
A week later at home, she woke with extreme stomach pain and started being sick.
Doctors found she had a severe infection and her 26-week-old baby needed to come out now.
Vicky added: “That’s when my world fell apart. It was a total shock. I was expecting to go home, not to theatre to have my baby taken out at just 26 weeks.
“But I was told I’d had a spontaneous rupture of the membranes.
“I then contracted a severe infection and there was no water protecting the baby so they needed to take her out.”
Layla was born by C-section at 5.35pm on July 28. She weighed 1lb 9oz and doctors said she was so underdeveloped she might not survive.
Vicky said: “My partner, Scott, was there every step of the way. I knew it was early days but I just knew she was a fighter. She just looked like a normal baby that had been hit by a shrink ray. I had never seen a baby so small.”
Layla was immediately placed in a ventilator as her lungs were not yet fully-grown.
Vicky wasn’t even allowed to hold her. But the worst was yet to come as after three weeks Layla contracted a life-threatening infection called necrotising enterocolitis, which caused part of her bowel to die.
She underwent emergency surgery, having 10cm of her bowel removed before having a stoma.
After seven weeks in recovery, Layla had her stoma reversed and her intestines put back together – all while battling a sepsis infection.
But baby Layla defied all odds and was discharged late last month.
Vicky said: “I was so excited to have her home but at the same time petrified.
“We are going to have a quiet family Christmas – just the three of us and our dog. We plan on starting a family tradition and going for a nice walk every Christmas morning.”