Joy for new mums

MASSIVE boost . . . Claire Holroyd and baby Kaycee with some of the staff who helped care for them

Babycare appeal backing
A HEARTBROKEN couple whose tiny daughter faced a tough battle to cling to life after her twin was stillborn are backing a move to bring specialist babycare services to Oldham.

The Chadderton pair spoke out in support of a £200,000 appeal which has been launched to support Oldham’s £44million women and children’s supercentre, due to be completed by December next year.

Sited at the Royal Oldham Hospital, it would have meant the trauma Claire Holroyd and her partner Michael faced after she went into labour at just 25 weeks would have been easier to cope with.

Instead, they had to travel to Wythenshawe Hospital, South Manchester, for specialist medical care.

Claire was admitted to the Royal Oldham Hospital when she went into labour at 25 weeks, but her need for specialist help meant she had to be transferred to Wythenshawe. It was there she and Michael were told one of their twins, Corrie, had died.

Two days later, on September 2, last year, Claire gave birth to twins.

Kaycee arrived first weighing 1lb 4oz, with many health issues which meant she needed intensive specialist medical care to help her survive. Corrie, weighing just 1lb 1oz was stillborn.

Claire said: “We stayed over in hospital accommodation at Wythenshawe for eight weeks at a very distressing time for us.

“We really needed our family and friends close by but it was a 40-minute drive. It would have been so much better if we could have stayed at Oldham but it was not a possibility at that time. “This new unit will have an intensive care ward and specialist neonatal consultants who would have been able to deliver the girls and treat Kaycee really close to where we live. It is brilliant.

Kaycee was brought back to the Royal Oldham Hospital towards the end of October. She is still in hospital, but is doing well.

The cutting-edge development planned for Oldham will provide maternity, neonatal and children’s services from a four-storey building and refurbished wards in the main hospital, and treat around 8,000 children a year.

There will be a gynaecology and early pregnancy unit, foetal maternal medicine, an ante-natal clinic, parents’ rooms, recovery rooms and a midwife-led unit with home comforts.