I’d walk to the end of the Earth for lost babies like my Freddie
England rugby hero Will Greenwood on his arduous Arctic trek in honour of his premature son who lived for just 45 minutes
THE breaths that Freddie Greenwood took during his 45 minutes of life were nothing short of heroic.
The first child of former England rugby star Will Greenwood and his wife Caro, Freddie was born perfectly formed – but at just 22 weeks, he was too tiny to survive.
The heartbreaking experience has left Will, 45, a try scorer in England’s 2003 World Cup winning side, with a valuable sense of perspective when it comes to tests of endurance. He is now preparing for his toughest physical challenge yet: a trek to the North Pole to raise £500,000 for the charity Borne, which funds research into preterm births such as the one that hit his family.
The team, led by polar explorer Alan Chambers, will battle extreme temperatures, blizzards, drifting ice floes, polar bears and exhaustion on the week-long trek, during which they will walk eight hours a day while pulling a 100 lb sledge.
But Will knows it cannot compare to the fight for life that premature babies face. ‘ Freddie’s life, and death, in September 2002, is etched in such detail,’ he says.
‘I could paint that hospital room, draw those moments. It was a horrific, brutal time.
‘The best way I can describe how I felt is using the W. H. Auden poem Funeral Blues, the one from Four Weddings And A Funeral – “Stop all the clocks.” You close the curtains, you check out. It’s a case of, “That’s it, I have no interest in anything.”
‘I hate the bloody cold and I’m going to the North Pole. But if there’s half a chance that more research means there could be a drug to halt premature birth, or a screening test, if it can help one family not have to go through that dark night, then it’s worth freezing my knackers off for. I’m literally going to the ends of the world for this.’
In the UK, one baby in 12 – about 60,000 a year – is born before 37 weeks, which is considered full term. The earlier the birth, the poorer a child’s chance of survival and the greater the risk of a lifelong disability. The premature birth rate is gradually rising in developed nations.
It is a trend which leading obstetrician Professor Mark Johnson, who founded Borne, is determined to reverse. Research will investigate the possible role of the maternal i mmune system i n ending pregnancies early. It is hoped the work could lead to a screening test to identify women at risk, or new drugs to halt the process.
The Government, too, is keen to reduce the risk by a quarter by 2025 – pre-term births cost the NHS £3 billion a year, and prolonging pregnancies by just one week could save £ 216 million. Prof Johnson said: ‘To tell parents there’s nothing we can do to save their child… They ask why it’s happening and we have to say, “I’m so sorry, we don’t know.”
‘I’ve been saying this for far too long and we need to be able to give people an answer, and to say what we are going to do to stop it.’
Freddie was born at 22 weeks because Caro has a condition known as incompetent cervix – the cervix shortens too soon into pregnancy and brings on labour. The couple went on to have three other children – Archie, now 14, Matilda, 11, and Rocco, eight. They were all born after 36 weeks after Prof Johnson gave Caro a cervical stitch to stop her going into early labour.
But like Caro, most women do not know they are at risk until they lose a baby. Will says: ‘We went to see one professor after Freddie was born and his attitude was, “This happens. You were just unlucky. Good luck.”
‘Caro couldn’t accept that – she saw Professor Johnson and the rest is history.’
Caro adds: ‘I tell the story like it’s someone else. I don’t allow myself to go down the emotional side of it unless it’s Freddie’s birthday. If I opened it up I might never come back. At the time I felt very handselected and cross, but I think we all have a choice. Will has a platform to make a difference and I feel so strongly that if people don’t use that platform it’s remiss.’
The trek begins on April 6 from the Barneo Ice Camp, a temporary Russian ice base 60 miles from the Geographic North Pole. Will’s teammates include former Royal Marine Commando and SAS expert Jason Fox, himself born two months prematurely, and former Australian rugby captain Dean Mumm, who lost two children to issues involving premature birth. The other trekkers are stem- cell expert and orthodontist Neil Counihan and Borne chairman Julian Mylchreest.
‘Freddie’s death was a horrific, brutal time’