At 12 o'clock on the 5th January 2009 I thought all my dreams had come true, when I recieved a call from my wife Fran, to say her waters had broken and our first child was on the way. Less than three hours later the world had turned upside down as our baby boy suffered a serious incident at birth and was rushed following an emergency section into the special care baby unit at Warrington Hospital.
Ieuan suffered serious blood loss due to a condition called Vasa Praevia (VP). VP occurs when one or more of the baby's placental or umbilical blood vessels cross the entrance to the birth canal beneath the baby.
Ieuan died three days later.
The really tragic part of this condition is that undiagnosed there is almost 100% infant fatality but when diagnosed 100% survival. Diagnosis is both simple and cheap through use of ultrasound scanning but despite this health care professionals are reluctant to routinely scan for it.
500 otherwise healthy full term babies die needlessly each year in the UK for want of diagnosis.
You cannot explain the gaping hole that is left following the loss of a child. It never goes away. Since Ieuan died, nearly 1,000 more babies will have died needlessly of this condition. Please help us stop this tragic waste of life.
To mark the second anniversary of Ieuan's death I will be climbing Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in January 2011 and would really appreciate your sponsorship. I'm funding this myself so all sponsorship will go to 'Vasa Praevia Raising Awareness'.
For more information on this condition please visit www.vasapraevia.co.uk
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