A baby born 16 weeks early will be spending her first Christmas at home with her family after spending over 11 months in hospital
Baby Ava was born in January this year in Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital weighing only 1lb 4oz.
Being so premature and so tiny, she needed immediate care and nine weeks after she was born, she was moved to Southampton Children’s Hospital for further specialist care. Her parents stayed nearby in Ronald McDonald House.
While most parents stay at the House for about two weeks, baby Ava needed so much care that her parents Lily Walker and David Hipkiss, stayed over twenty times longer.
Ava has some chronic lung conditions but her managing to get home for Christmas after eleven months in hospital is a huge milestone.
Lily, her mum, said “We had quite a few home dates, but Ava’s decided ‘No, I quite like it here, I’m not going to go just yet’. But it’ll be nice to get back to some sort of normality”.
David, her Dad, added “It’s amazing to see… how Ava’s done so well. That’s been the thing that’s kept us going so strong”.
Outcomes for premature babies are improving all the time. Earlier this year, John Wyatt, Professor of Ethics and Perinatology at University College London and also Emeritus Professor of Neonatal Paediatrics, Ethics & Perinatology at University College London, presented evidence to parliamentarians from the UK and across the world “that there has been a steady improvement in the chances of survival of babies born at 22 and 23 weeks gestation since the Abortion Act was last amended [in 1990]”.
Right To Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson said “Premature babies are a persistent challenge to supporters of abortion because the humanity of each of these babies is on clear display. In the UK, sadly, it remains legal to abort a baby up to birth if that baby has a disability”.
