Our son Arthur was born in September 2017 at York hospital in an unexpectedly poor condition, suffering from Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy, a suspected lack of oxygen to the brain. Within minutes of Arthur's birth he underwent CPR, was placed on a ventilator and taken to the Special Care Baby Unit.

As York Hospital did not have the specialist equipment required for his further treatment, Arthur was carefully transferred by Embrace, an ambulance service for critically ill babies, to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Women and Children’s Hospital in Hull for specialist cooling treatment.

The treatment Arthur received lowered his core body temperature over a period of 72 hours to help minimise any further damage to his brain. In total, Arthur was in Intensive Care for six days and then the High Dependency and Special Care unit for a further three days before being transferred back to York Hospital by Embrace.

Those nine days and nights we spent in Hull by the bedside of our beautiful new baby boy were the most challenging and heart-breaking we have ever experienced. The round the clock care and compassion of the staff who looked after Arthur was extraordinary, and we will forever be in debt to the amazing team that helped him through those first difficult days of his life.

Arthur continues to be under the care of a Paediatric Consultant, but we are cautiously optimistic as he appears to be doing very well with no obvious lasting damage present at this time. We look ahead with great positivity for his bright future. He is an absolute delight, with so much love and laughter and it is impossible to think of our lives without him now.

Words cannot convey how grateful we are for the NHS and especially the amazing team of people at Hull who worked tirelessly to save Arthurs life.

Please help us to say a huge thank you by donating anything you can so that the Hull NICU can continue to help babies and families in similar situations.