A premature baby born nine weeks early in Scotland has made a dramatic recovery from COVID-19 after being one of the youngest people on the planet to contract the disease.
Chloe Connolly, 25, mother of four, gave birth to twins Esmaè and Averly McGuinness in September last year. After a dramatic birth at home, her babies were born nine weeks early and, to make matters worse, Averly caught COVID-19 in hospital.
Baby Averly was born nine weeks early and caught COVID a month later, making her one of the youngest people on earth to be diagnosed with and recover from COVID.
Chloe, from North Lanarkshire, Scotland, described how she suddenly started to experience serious pain and called an ambulance.
“I was feeling rubbish and overnight I started to get really bad pains, it all happened so fast. We were on the phone with paramedics for 28 minutes and by the time they arrived the twins were born”.
“I couldn’t help but think how I was about to have to plan a funeral for her soon”.
Everything happened so fast that she could not even make it downstairs and gave birth in the bedroom.
“Averly was born first and six minutes later so was Esmaè. I never even had a paracetamol”.
“It has been a complete rollercoaster for us, we didn’t think she would survive to start with. The doctors had told us we were looking at hour by hour, they couldn’t even say she had days left”.
“They transferred her to the Royal Children’s Hospital and had a neonatal surgeon in the ambulance in case anything went really wrong. We drove behind them and I couldn’t help but think how I was about to have to plan a funeral for her soon”.
A little over a month after the twins were born, Averly caught COVID and doctors told her worried parents that it was unlikely she would survive.
“I started to think about flowers and arrangements in my head, it was horrible. Thankfully I didn’t have to do that because after being put in a coma and on a ventilator she started to get better. We couldn’t believe it”.
After spending 14 days at Royal Children’s Hospital, Averly had improved and was able to return to the Wishaw neonatal unit. The twins were able to go home on 12 November and are now ten months old.
Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson said: “Baby Averly has defied the odds and fought COVID. These heartwarming stories of premature babies surviving COVID-19 reminds us of the value of life, regardless of age”.
