'She's fine - but she has Covid-19'

After those first weeks after her premature birth, during which Peyton enjoyed a bath in the ward, she began to show the slightest of symptoms - a sniffle and a few coughs, almost undetectable.

Tracy told BBC Radio Scotland's Mornings with Kaye Adams programme the news that her baby had become one of the country's youngest virus patients was traumatic.

"They said 'she's fine, don't panic - but she has tested positive for coronavirus'," said Tracy.

"I think the doctor was trying to keep me calm but I was sobbing. As much as she was fine I thought at what point was she with the virus? How is she fighting against it when she's so wee? It was just the unknown."

Peyton received "amazing" care from neonatal nurses as she battled the coronavirus, and was given steroids to help strengthen her lungs.

However, after recovering from her Caesarean section, Tracy was told she would have to go home and self-isolate for two weeks away from her baby.

She said: "I was pleading on the phone with the doctor saying I don't want to be away from her.

"As much as everyone was looking after her, I'm her mum. Even if it was the cold, I'd want to be there with her," she recalls.

Because of Tracey's persistence to stay with her baby, the doctors relented and allowed Tracey to stay with Peyton. As days passed, the number of deaths in Scotland caused by the virus did increase - but little Peyton recovered.

She and Tracy were discharged on Monday and Peyton's dad Adrian has been able to hold his daughter for the first time since leaving hospital.

Tracy said: "From Adrian's point of view, I think he felt a bit useless - first his baby is coming early and secondly his wife isn't well and he couldn't be there." 

'Put your trust in nurses'

Now delighted to be home and settling into life with her baby girl, Tracy and family have praised the doctors and nurses at Wishaw General who guided them through an incredible and daunting birth.

Tracy said: "They are doing a job that is unreal - they put their life at risk to make sure my baby was getting fed and cuddled in their full PPE.

"It's spectacular, you'll never understand how grateful you can be to people. Peyton is my most precious thing in the whole world and I trusted them to look after her.

"To any mums that are worried, put your trust in these nurses."

Preterm survival rates reigniting abortion debate

Peyton's incredible recovery comes as more and more premature babies are surviving in the UK.

In fact, the survival rate for extremely premature babies has doubled over the past decade, prompting new guidance allowing doctors to try to save babies born as early as 22 weeks into a pregnancy.

The previous clinical guidance, drafted in 2008, included a presumption against attempting to provide life-saving treatment to a baby born before 23 weeks.

Polling shows that 70% of women in the UK want to see the time limit for abortion reduced to 20 weeks or below.Medical consensus has believed that unborn babies do not feel pain until the middle or end of the second trimester, 20 to 24 weeks. But newly published medical research indicates that unborn babies can feel pain much sooner.

The debate over late-term abortions continues in the U.K., where hospitals are increasingly saving babies born at 22 weeks — the earliest point of viability — who could just as easily have been killed in a late-term abortion. 

It is a cruel irony that on one side of a hospital in the UK (including in Northern Ireland from March 2020), medical professionals will fight to save the life of a premature baby while on the other side of the hospital – preborn babies can be legally killed up to 24 weeks on request, and in certain circumstances, up to BIRTH.