Our daughterwas born on the 10^th May 2014 at 10:24am.

She sufferedfrom a condition called Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE). Hypoxic IschemicEncephalopathy (HIE) is a type of brain damage that occurs when an infant’sbrain doesn’t receive enough oxygen and blood. It is a dangerous condition thatrequires immediate medical intervention. HIE can affect all of your baby'sorgans: the lungs, liver, heart, kidneys, and particularly the brain. HIE is amajor cause of Cerebral Palsy.

If a babyhas been identified as having HIE, their treatment will depend on what level ofsymptoms they have. If they have moderate to severe HIE, they are likely toreceive a treatment known as mild hypothermia or cooling. This is when a baby’stemperature is lowered, to limit the extent of brain injury associated withHIE.

Treatmentfor HIE involves placing your baby on a special cooling mattress or wrappingthem in a cooling wrap; the mattress or wrap is filled with fluid that can becooled or warmed according to your baby’s needs. Your baby’s temperature willbe monitored closely to ensure that it stays at the target temperature of 33.5degrees for 72hours.

The NeonatalUnit in which our daughter was treated had only 2 cooling machines. If thesewere both in use our baby would have needed to be transferred to a differenthospital with a machine available. This would have delayed the treatment andher injuries would have continued to get worse. We are extremely lucky that thelast cooling machine was available for our daughter that day, this meantcooling was started within 40minutes of her birth. The quicker the baby iscooled the better the outcome.

Imagine,your baby not being placed onto your chest at delivery? No first hold of yourbaby for 4-5 days? Not hearing them cry due to being ventilated? The notknowing if you will be taking your baby home at all?

It isbecause of this treatment being available that we did get to bring our daughterhome.

It has takenme 10 months to be able to talk about what we all went through …… so why now?

My aim is toraise enough funds for the Preston Neonatal Unit to purchase more vitalequipment so other babies have an outcome as good as ours. The lower target toraise is £16,000.

£16,000 isenough to fund 2 Cerebral Function Monitors (CFMs) - The cerebral functionmonitor provides information on global cerebral activity, it indicates anyseizures and other incidents within the brain activity which may be a sign ofbrain damage.

£21,000 (highertarget) would mean we could purchase another cooling machine for the neonatalunit. 

https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinsCoolingCause

All news and updates regarding our progress will be updated on this Facebook page.

If you are a business or company and would like to donate a prize for our raffles please do get in touch with me at CaitlinsCoolingCause@hotmail.com .

Thank You for taking the time to read our story and for donating to help us raise money for the vital equipment needed to aid the cooling process.

Our first raffle raised £800 which us an amazing start, we do however have a long way to go to meet our target.

Visit our facebook page www.facebook.com/CaitlinsCoolingCause to view our updates of any events.

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