Select Page

Premature baby helps save mum’s life after medics discover tumour during a hospital visit to see her daughter

A baby, born 12 weeks early, ended up saving her mother’s life after doctors discovered a cancerous tumour.

Harriet Elsdon, 32, from Brentwood, Essex, gave birth to her daughter, Maddison Wilmshurst-Smith, 12 weeks before her due date. Medics told Harriet that if she hadn’t given birth so early, they might not have found the cancer growing on one of her ovaries in time.

Baby Maddison was not due until October, but on 1 July, her mother Harriet started experiencing serious abdominal pain and so rushed to Broomfield Hospital. Within 20 minutes of arriving, her daughter was born.

“After three pushes, she was out. It was such a whirlwind experience, and she was so tiny when she was born”, Harriet said.

“She was passed over to me… before going into the neonatal ward”.

“If Nicholas and I hadn’t been in the hospital visiting Maddison I don’t think I would have bothered being medically checked”.

But just five days later, when Harriet and her partner, Nicholas, went to visit their daughter in hospital, Harriet decided to have her abdomen checked because she was still experiencing pain. During the ultrasound, medics spotted a mass on one of her ovaries. They had discovered a tumour.

“If Nicholas and I hadn’t been in the hospital visiting Maddison I don’t think I would have bothered being medically checked. As any parent knows, you put your kids first and yourself second”.

“I was too busy worrying about my newborn to worry about myself – it was like she knew she had to come early to save my life”.

Harriet was able to have an operation to remove her right ovary and one of her fallopian tubes, and started chemotherapy just weeks later.

“Maddison really saved my life – but she won’t hear that from me as she’ll be using it against me when she’s a teenager”.

Maddison, though, is thriving. Her mum said “Even though she was tiny at birth, she thrived in the ward compared to other premature babies”.

“I always think, if I [hadn’t] gone into early labour, I don’t think the tumour would have been caught in time. It’s almost like she knew she had to come out. If she didn’t, I’d be looking at stage three or four ovarian cancer”.

“Maddison really saved my life – but she won’t hear that from me as she’ll be using it against me when she’s a teenager”.

Right To Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson said “The prospects for extremely premature babies are improving all the time, but it doesn’t often happen that being born prematurely saves a woman’s life. What a great present for both mother and daughter just in time for Christmas.”

Ask your local representatives to take the Both Lives Pledge

Dear reader,

In 2021 abortion campaigners brought forward an amendment to the UK Government’s flagship Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would have introduced abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth (including sex-selective abortion).

Thanks to the support from people like you, this amendment did not go to a vote and pass, but we expect the abortion lobby to make another attempt to introduce this extreme abortion law change shortly.

This would be the single biggest change to abortion legislation since 1967 and would leave England and Wales with one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world.

Please sign the petition to the Prime Minister, asking him to ensure that his Government does everything in its power to stop the introduction of abortion up to birth.

URGENT
APPEAL
TO SAVE
LIVES

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Ask your local representatives to take the Both Lives Pledge