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Charlie’s story so far…..

Charlie was born in Swindon on Tuesday 7th February 2017. Whilst the pregnancy and birth itself were normal, Charlie was unexpectedly born "flat" (This is a term they have used to explain he was not breathing) and with his umbilical cord wrapped twice tightly around his neck.

He was resuscitated in Swindon immediately after birth and given a high level
of support for his breathing, although, his heart was functioning as expected.
As he went 11 minutes before he was able to breath consistently (by
ventilation) he was taken into Swindon ICU with concerns that he may be
suffering from an amount of damage to his brain, therefore stopping it from
sending the breath "command" to his lungs. Based on this information
the decision was made by doctors to transfer him to Bristol’s St. Michaels
hospital for emergency treatment and a cycle of cooling.

It was explained to us that cooling involved placing him in an induced,
controlled state of hypothermia and reducing his body temperature to 33.5
degrees for 72 hours and treating him with sedative, this would hopefully slow
his body and organs down and therefore reduce the amount of pressure being
placed on his brain. The aim of this treatment is to prevent further damage and allow his brain time to relax. During this process Charlie received continual blood tests, several rounds of antibiotics and a lumbar punctures (the drain
and testing of some fluid from his spine) that appeared to show he may have
been suffering from meningitis and HIE hypoxia (lack of oxygen) whilst in the
womb.


The process of re-warming Charlie back to a normal temperature began on Friday 10^th February at 7pm and was expected to take until 2:30am on Saturday. Although it took a small amount of time longer than anticipated he was successfully warmed to 36.5 degrees by 4am on Saturday.

After he came to temperature the process began of lowering his medication and a second lumbar puncture was conducted.

16 hours after warming (Saturday PM) concerns were raised by doctors that
Charlie’s brain function still appeared to be very limited, having gradually
reduced over the 72 hours of cooling. His movements were also limited and he was still unable to breathe without the aid of a ventilator. It was explained
that this was of concern and a greater amount of progress has been expected.
Reasons for the lack of progress could not be determined but could include: too much sedative, the reduction in medication was too fast, or that his brain was perhaps just no longer functional and had degraded despite best efforts to prevent this.

He did however have the fact that he had gone to term and was a good size on his side. He had also not suffered any seizures of fits during the warming process.

On Sunday evening, after several agonising days of waiting, Charlie had finally
woken by 7am and began to make amazing progress. He had begun to breath above the ventilator and slowly, over 14 hours, was removed from his painkillers, antibiotics and his feeding drip. He then began to opens his eyes, breathe, cry and feed through a tube. At 5 days old, we were finally able to hold our baby for the first time.

On Tuesday and now 7 days old Charlie was still in intensive care awaiting
results of the second lumbar puncture and MRI and scan but things were looking positive. We were also now able to dress him for the first time.

We were told to expect another 7 to 10 days before Charlie could be transferred back to his local hospital in Swindon however, due to his progress, this transfer was completed on Wednesday and Charlie is now closer to home and continuing to recover and learn to feed on his own.

At the time of writing whilst we still do not have complete answers as why he was poorly Charlie is now 12 days old and recovering well in his local hospital and we are now back in our family home.

I have set up this page to say thank you for all the help, support, effort and time received from the midwives, nurses, doctors and consultants at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital, Bristol’s St. Michael’s Hospital and from the NEST Transport Team.

All money raised will be sent to the Cots For Tots Appeal to say thank you for allowing us to stay just a 30 second walk from Charlie and the St Michaels Hospital during this incredibly difficult time.

The Power of Your Pound:

£100 – Could provide story books through the “tell me a story” program, to help parents and their babies bond.

£250 – Could provide 5 music therapy sessions to babies in NICU, this has been shown to soothe babies at the hardest of times, whilst having a calming effect on their brains and improving breathing.

£420 – Could pay for 2 weeks’ accommodation for the family of a sick baby.

£1500 – Could fund a family support worker for a month to provide a life line to parents, grandparents, siblings and carers.

£5000 –Could fund lifesaving equipment and help towards the purchase of pioneering medical kit, such as ventilators, pioneering cooling equipment and so much more.