Family fundraise for their miracle baby!
Across Heartlands Hospital and Good Hope Hospital over 11,000 babies are welcomed to the world every year.
However, 800 of these babies are sadly premature and will need support from the Neonatal Unit.
One of these 800 babies was Raheel Akhtar.
His mother, Shabnum went into labour with Raheel 10 weeks early due to a difficult pregnancy. Raheel was taken to the Neonatal Unit straight away where it was discovered that he had pneumothorax, a condition where a babies lungs can become overinflated and burst.
Raheel was treated immediately and was slowly getting stronger, but on Christmas Eve, he stopped breathing and was taken onto the high dependency unit where he was fitted with a CPAP breathing machine. He stayed in the unit a further four weeks until finally; at the end of January 2011 he was allowed to go home.
This December, Raheel will be turning nine-years-old. Shabnum said: “I still can’t believe he weighed less than a bag of sugar at birth. I can’t thank the doctors and especially the nurses enough or all the hard work and dedication they put into caring for Raheel. I can’t emphasise my appreciation of the encouragement and support I got from breast feeding him to changing him to holding him. I just want to say a huge thank you from Raheel and family to all the staff.”
To support the Neonatal Unit the family have organised a ‘Family Funday’ .There will be food, a tombola raffle, candy floss, delicious cakes, face paint plus much more!
The event will take place on Saturday 2 November from 12:00-3:30pm at Khidmat Centre 2a Heather road B10 9TA.
If you would like to help support the Neonatal Unit, why not go along to Shabnum’s event? Or hold one of your own, take part in a Prematuri-tea to raise money for our little patients please click here.
