Thank you for visiting our fundraising page.  We are hoping to raise the staggering amount of £14,000 in 2014 for the University Hospital of North Staffordshire (UHNS).  We have kicked off the fundraising with Ben running the London Marathon and Bethany doing a sponsored toddle. Our next event is the Westbridge 5 on 1st June.

A lot has happened in the last 12 months.  Please read on to see why we have picked this charity and why we have set ourselves the target of £14,000.

At 2.57am on 17 April 2013 Bethany Rose Gamble made her dramatic entrance into the world at UHNS.  During labour she became distressed and had to be quickly delivered by emergency caesarean.  On delivery Bethany was pale, floppy and had a barely audible heart rate.  She wasn’t breathing for herself so had to be ventilated.  It wasn’t until she was nine minutes old that she was self ventilating and when she was 13 minutes old she was transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

Bethany was diagnosed with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), a condition in which a baby’s supply of oxygen is interrupted during birth.  Until recently there was no specific treatment for HIE other than intensive care support.  However, medical trials have found that cooling a baby by a few degrees for 72 hours can limit the extent of brain injury associated with HIE and improve the long-term outcome for children.

It was fortunate for Bethany that she was born at UHNS as the NICU has the specialised cooling mattress required to treat HIE.  For 72 hours Bethany’s body temperature was reduced from the normal body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius to 33.5 degrees Celsius.  She lay shivering in an incubator and had both her temperature and brain activity monitored continuously.   She received fluid intravenously, and was given oxygen to assist her breathing and morphine to ease her pain.  As her parents, we were allowed to hold her hand to let her know that we were there but stimulation was kept to a minimum.

After 72 hours she was slowly warmed and when she was four days old we finally got to hold our precious daughter.  We all spent a further three days in NICU and after just over a week, on 24 April 2013, Bethany was allowed to come home. She had to go back for an MRI scan two days later, but we were finally able to begin our family life together.

The treatment that not only Bethany, but also we her parents, received was fantastic.  We were able to stay on the unit and visit Bethany throughout the day and night.  The staff were outstanding and not only provided amazing care for Bethany but showed compassion and reassurance to us throughout our time in NICU. 

Bethany’s prognosis is good and the paediatricians are really pleased with her progress.  She has a moderate to severe hearing loss but apart from that she is developing well and is hitting all of the milestones that are expected for a baby of her age.  Without the cooling treatment she received at UHNS her prognosis might well be very different and she might not even be with us today.

The UHNS charity bought the cooling mattress in 2012 at a cost of £14,000.  We, Bethany’s family and friends, are now hoping to raise the equivalent amount of a new mattress during 2014 as a way of saying thank you for the amazing treatment that we all received in NICU at UHNS.

On behalf of ourselves, of Bethany, and of the hospital, we thank you for any contribution you can make to this formidable target.