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Angela and Jason
faced a terrible dilemma
By Craig Robertson
AT the start of this year Angela Cramb was looking forward to the birth of her first child.
 On January 4 she and husband Jason ordered a
pram even though it was three months before their baby was due.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly for the couple from Old Kilpatrick, near Clydebank, but the very next day Angela woke to discover some bleeding.
After advice from her midwife she went to
the Queen Mother’s Hospital at Yorkhill a day later. Angela (33)
felt fine but was kept in over the weekend as a precaution and to
undergo routine checks.
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 Angela and Jason with Lewis, who is now a happy, healthy baby.
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Spots
She was then told she could go home if she went 24 hours without bleeding. Angela went the next
22 hours with no more signs of blood — then, just two hours before she might have been discharged, a few spots appeared and it was decided to keep her in for one more day. As it turned out, those few spots probably saved both her life and her baby’s.
Once the decision was made to keep Angela in, Jason (33) was despatched home to get a bit of rest. Twenty minutes later Angela was diagnosed as suffering severe
pre-eclampsia and probably needed an emergency Caesarean section.
“I was just putting the key in the front door when my mobile rang,” remembers Jason. “I rushed back to the Queen Mum’s to find Angela surrounded by about 40 people. It was the start of the rollercoaster.
“We were told the pre-eclampsia wasn’t a problem for the baby but could be fatal for me,” adds Angela. “But at 24 weeks his chances of surviving an emergency section were only 50-50.”
It was an incredible balancing act for the team at the Queen Mum’s. Every extra minute in the womb improved the baby’s chances of survival — yet every minute that passed meant an increased risk
to Angela’s life.
Adamant
It was a terrible dilemma. Angela’s instinctive reaction was
to do whatever it took to save her baby and was adamant she didn’t want him delivered before
30 weeks.
Jason, however, had to consider his wife’s health first and their unborn child second.
“In the end, there was no decision to be made,” says Jason. “The medical team said it was basically ‘we do it now or Angela dies’.”
They went into action and at 7.01 in the morning Lewis was born.
There was no chance for his proud parents to admire their
little boy, though. Angela was unconscious and Jason had no more than a quick glimpse as his son was rushed off to be resuscitated.
Lewis was actually a relatively healthy-sounding 2 lbs 11 oz but
far more important to his chances of survival than his weight was the fact that he came into the world before 30 weeks. He needed constant care and help to breathe.
“It was the start of 12 hours of controlled chaos,” says Jason. “Angela had to go into intensive care at the Southern General while Lewis went to the Western Infirmary where there was a suitable ventilator for him.
Sent home
“I was eventually sent home out of the way but again I was putting my key in the door when the phone rang to tell me Angela was awake.”
Lewis was born on a Wednesday morning but it was the Thursday night before his mum saw him for the first time. It’s a special moment for any mother but Angela — groggy from the effects of her own life-saving operation — can’t remember it.
“It’s horrible that I don’t remember the feeling of him being born or seeing him for the first time,” she says. “He was nine weeks in the incubator and it was day 30 before we got to take him out to give him a cuddle.
“We’d touched him before, but that was the first real contact and I take that as my first real memory
of him. It started there.
“It was absolutely amazing. It was just the three of us. I sat in the chair with Lewis in my arms — he was tiny, not even the length from my wrist to elbow and Jason’s wedding ring could slip easily over his wrist. There was a load of tears.”
Precious
Angela and Jason were given that precious moment with their son because the next day he was to undergo a major operation to close an abnormal blood vessel at his heart — know as a PDA.
This vessel closes naturally when a baby is born at term but often fails to in a premature birth. This hadn’t closed in Lewis’s case, causing too much blood to pump into his lungs and putting strain on his heart.
Lewis had to have repeated scans to know when the time was right for the PDA to
be surgically closed and if an infection he had picked up had retreated enough
for him to have the operation.
“The op took four hours but he was bright as a button the next day and the next thing he was off the ventilator,” remembers Jason.
“That was when he turned the corner. He went from intensive care to the high-dependency unit and then a cot. From there it was relatively plain sailing apart from normal baby niggles.”
When you consider those “normal niggles” included suspected pneumonia, a lumbar puncture after a meningitis scare and an eye problem, you realise just how serious things were.
Lewis finally got home to Old Kilpatrick when he was 15 weeks
— just a week after he should have been born. Since then he’s put on twice the weight expected, gaining 12 ounces in one week alone. He’s now a healthy, happy baby.
Wishlist
Consultant neonatologist Dr Anne Marie Heuchan explained how Lewis would have benefited from a state-of-the-art scanner that’s high on our campaign
wishlist.
“The scanner is vital. Premature babies need close monitoring from the moment they are born. These babies are extremely fragile and can have life-threatening problems with their blood pressure, heart function and bleeding into the brain.
“This scanner will help us identify these problems very early on so we can act to prevent them.
“Once the baby is stable we use the scanner to monitor brain growth and check for problems due to a PDA. This type of 4D scanner will give us new information about the development of the premature baby’s brain at a time while they should still be in the womb.”
The Queen Mother’s Hospital is the only centre in Scotland for the sort of heart surgery that helped Lewis. Premature babies are referred from all over Scotland.
The staff at all the hospitals involved did a fantastic job in saving Angela and her baby.
But with your help they will be able to do even more. The scanner we hope to raise money for will undoubtedly save lives and so will the money you donate and the fund-raising schemes you organise.
Babies like Lewis need the help.
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