🩵🩷 A group of us girls from Maternity are pulling on our hiking boots and pushing ourselves to climb the Clisham on Saturday the 23rd of May 2026 and we are hoping to raise money along the way 🩷🩵

It was a difficult decision to pick a charity to fundraise for because within our daily working lives we benefit from the work, research and services of so many and each one is valuable to us. However we have chosen to Climb the Clisham for Tiny Tickers, they have enhanced our care locally and in doing so are increasing the opportunities to improve the early detection of congenital heart disease. Every woman and baby born locally are benefitting from the work of Tiny Tickers 🩷🩵

Tiny Tickers have provided:

• Six pulse oximetry machines were donated to NHS Western Isles and pulse oximetry testing now forms part of the newborn examination for all babies across the Western Isles. This test helps to detect serious heart conditions soon after birth, and improve early detection rates of congenital heart disease (CHD) in babies

• The “Think HEART” online learning course funded by donations made in Finlay Eric's memory was developed and launched by Tiny Tickers for all health professionals working with babies, including midwives, doctors, nurses, and health visitors, and aims to teach the five key signs that a baby may have an undiagnosed heart defect

• Tiny Tickers have also provided training for Western Isles obstetric sonographers, access to counselling support for bereaved parents, support for families navigating the journey with their Heart Heroes, family support groups and so much more.

🩵Locally we were introduced to Tiny tickers by Ruth and Finlay Macleod, the amazing parents of Finlay Eric who tragically passed away on the 31st of May 2021 at only 20 weeks old, with an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. All of our Tiny Tickers training, education and support has been funded through the fundraising work of Finlay Eric’s family, done in his memory ‘Finlay’s Forever Footprints’ 🩵

We wanted to dedicate our Clisham climb to Finlay Eric’s legacy on what should be his 5th birthday year 🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵

A baby is born with a serious heart condition every two hours in the UK and despite congenital heart disease being one of the biggest killers of infants, only around half of congenital heart defects are picked up during routine prenatal scanning.

With your help we can provide a safety net for the 1,000 babies each year that leave hospital with their heart defect undetected, increasing detection rates, improving a baby’s chances of survival and long-term quality of life.