A man who was unable to attend the birth of his premature twins due to the Covid crisis is raising money for the ward that cared for his son.
Sylvie Rose and Wynn Stancliffe were born 10 weeks prematurely on 24 August 2021 at Sunderland Royal Hospital after their mum Laura Stancliffe, 28, was admitted to the hospital with preeclampsia, a condition that causes high blood pressure later in pregnancy and can be fatal if not treated quickly.
At just four days old though, baby Wynn took a turn for the worse and was transferred to the Tiny Lives Special Care Baby Unit at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) after developing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). NEC is a disease that primarily affects premature babies where the intestine cannot hold waste properly so bacteria may pass into the bloodstream and cause a life-threatening infection.
Laura, from Seaham, said: “We nearly lost Wynn that night. He got sent to the RVI and I got a call in the middle of the night to go there but Sylvie stayed at Sunderland and of course there were no visitors allowed at the time due to [the Government Covid restrictions] so Sylvie was on her own a lot of the time”.
“It was horrible. I look back now and I don’t know how we did it. We couldn’t do without that ward”, she added.
While baby Wynn was being treated at the RVI, mum Laura also had to rush back to the hospital in Sunderland to see her daughter Sylvie and pick up her eldest son, Jude, from school.
Fortunately, despite all the turmoil and the close calls, Wynn and his sister Sylvie pulled through and the twins are now a year old.
As a thank you to the medical staff for all their efforts, the twins’ father, Ben, 31, is raising money for the unit by taking on a 131-mile coast-to-coast bike ride from Whitehaven, in Cumbria, to Sunderland to raise money for Tiny Lives on 10 of September. He will then continue his challenge by taking part in the Great North Run on the following day.
Survival rates for extremely premature babies are improving all the time
While abortion is legal in England and Wales up to 24 weeks, the outcome for even extremely premature babies is 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 showing “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: “Prematurely born babies like Wynn and Sylvie are a constant challenge to supporters of abortion. They show us the humanity of the child in the womb. Sadly, because abortion up to birth is legal for babies with disabilities, babies of the same gestational development have their lives ended by abortion every year. This is tragic and our law needs to be urgently changed.”
