All,

In October 2015 our baby, Oscar, was born at 4lbs 11oz with a rare abdominal defect which caused his bowel to develop outside of his body. Gastroschisis affects around 1 in 5,000 babies in the UK, some of whom are lucky enough to be treated by the amazing team at Chelsea and Westminster's NICU (neonatal intensive care unit).  

Oscar spent 2 months in the NICU, initially for an operation and then to support his life while getting his bowel functioning.  He is now a thriving 6 month old baby who, we are aware, may have set backs but is a reminder to us each day of how incredibly lucky we are.  We are more indebted to the team at Chelsea, who continue to support his care, than we can possibly say and are asking you to support us as we tandem our way to Brighton on 11th September!

We have decided to put our support behind some groundbreaking research being led by one of Oscar's consultants at C&W into a condition that is the second most common cause of death in western NICUs.  Necrotising Enterocolitis (NEC) is fundamentally a gangrene of the gut and babies who are born prematurely, or undergo serious bowel surgery in their early days like Oscar, are particularly susceptible.  

Our team is aiming to raise a total of £25,000 towards this research into predicting the causes of, improving treatment for and prevention of NEC.  This target will fund a Neonatal Research nurse for a whole year.  One of the things we had noticed from our experience was the lack of funding for this role, despite the high proportion of surgical babies (including Oscar) on the NICU.  

Please help us to get there.

Many thanks for your support, we very much appreciate it and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible between Clapham and Brighton in September!