NI Mum brings home ‘miracle’ premature baby
23/03/16 UTV
Meabh McArdle was born at just 23 weeks on the 9 October last year.
The extremely premature infant was born with pneumonia and surrounded by toxic fluids.
She weighed just 480g, a fraction over a pound and doctors at the Royal Maternity Hospital's neonatal unit gave her between zero and one per cent chance of surviving.
Her mum Fionnuala told UTV: “When I looked at her and she was so fragile, she really was badly bruised and she just looked so sick, but I just loved her.
“It was scary because she was so small. She was the size of my hand. It was just [like] ‘how are you here’?”
The little baby has fought for her life over the last five months with the help of medics and this week was discharged from hospital weighing a healthy eight pounds.
Fionnuala recalls when her baby tried to grasp her hand in the hours after she was born and knowing her daughter would survive.
She named her Meabh, which means the cause of great joy.
Meabh has went through four operations, including a major one on her heart and two on her eyes.
There were many, many setbacks along the day but Fionnuala will never forget the moment she was able to hold her precious daughter for just a few moments five weeks after she was born.
“It was literally about a minute, if even, because she couldn’t handle it,” Fionnuala continued.
“She was still on a ventilator at the time so she was put straight back in. But it was the most amazing minute of my life.”
Meabh still requires oxygen, is still being tube fed and may have health problems in the future, but for now Fionnuala is just rejoicing that just two days ago she finally was allowed what was once unthinkable.
“Absolutely over the moon, I finally felt like a proper mother because I was able to take the baby home,” she said.
Dr Clifford Mayes, neonatal consultant at the Royal Maternity Hospital said Meabh is one of the most premature babies to survive in Northern Ireland.
“At 23 weeks the chances of survival are very small, there is some hope but the majority of babies born at this stage don’t survive,” he explained.
“I am delighted for Fionnuala. It’s nice to be proven wrong.”