My husband Alisdair and many of our good friends will be doing this 5K run on Sunday 7th October to help raise money for the neo-natal unit at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, a charity very close to our hearts.

In 2009 our daughter Ella was admitted to the unit but tragically lost her battle for life after 8 days. As you can imagine this was a very distressing time for us and our family. Ella received such specialist care from the consultants and staff within the unit and us as parents received much needed support to help us through each day and night that followed Ella’s birth. Sadly Ella was just too sick but the unit did everything they could do to give her a fighting chance and also to help us as parents spend precious time with our daughter.

The unit provides a very specialist service to extremely sick babies. It is tremendously busy and has some of the most advanced equipment in the area but sadly it is not enough. The Hospital has been allocated £7 million for a new unit and has secured funding for the increased annual running and staffing costs but they need an additional £1.5 million to purchase additional equipment and comfort items for the babies and their families.

Please help to give these sick babies the best start in life by donating generously to this worthy cause.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story

Miranda and Alisdair

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.