A mother said she has had to revive her baby son three times by performing CPR after he was born premature in March 2018.
When Chloe Gibbs went into early labour, she was unaware of the challenges that soon faced her and her little baby, Herts Live reports.
The mum was frantically rushed to University College London Hospitals (UCLH) when she was at just 24 + 3 weeks of her pregnancy.
Unable to administer any pain relief to the young mother, doctors worked to slow down the labour. Baby Hunter was born at 25 + 1 weeks on March 5 at 10.08pm and weighed an astonishing 750 grams.
Chloe’s mother, Michele De Groot, was by her daughter's side throughout the birth and has remained there ever since. Immediately after birth, Hunter was placed into a neonatal plastic bag to regulate his temperature.
"Five, four, three, two, one" - doctors were counting down and "timing everything", Michele said. Chloe was only allowed a five-second glimpse at her newborn child before he was rushed to intensive care - something no mother should have to endure.
Michele explained: “I was there with 10 neonatal specialists in this small room, it was very scary. They timed everything so that they knew how long it took to get him from each area of the room.
"They were counting down from 15 seconds the minute he was born. They were holding him, then the door shut and that was it.”
It took four attempts to incubate Hunter successfully. Then it was a total of six hours before Chloe could meet him in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Hunter was later transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and was placed into an induced paralysis, Michele says, after acquiring a life-threatening infection known as Necrotising Enterocolitis.
Once arriving at GOSH, Hunter was taken for an operation where a long line was inserted through his thigh to his heart in a bid to successfully and more effectively pump fluids around his tiny body as he was unable to feed from his mouth.
The operation was performed by doctors at his bedside as he was too weak to be moved from the Intensive care unit and into theatre.
As well as fighting infections, Hunter was also subject to 15 blood transfusions and countless other tests during his five-week hospital stay before being transferred to Watford General Hospital.
Due to the nature of his birth, the family was told that Hunter could be blind and mentally disabled.
At the point of discharge, he had a feeding intolerance, bone disease, retinopathy of prematurity and chronic lung disease. However, the challenges would not stop there.
Hunter had to be placed on portable oxygen for six months, during this time his mother Chloe had to perform CPR on her newborn child three times to save his life.
One incident occurred when Chloe was driving to the supermarket and had to revive her son in the car park.
Hunter is now four-years-old and has since developed OCD and Autism traits which have been observed by both family and school teachers after a brief school assessment was completed.
Michele has decided to do a sponsored walk of Snowdonia in Wales on June 15 this year to raise £2,000 for the much needed assessment for Hunter and any additional costs that will likely occur throughout his life.
The Gofundme page can be found here.
