Young mum tells of how medics warned her baby ‘wouldn’t survive the weekend’ after being BORN with meningitis
Samantha Allsop recalls the devastating moment she found out her daughter had the infection
A YOUNG mum has told how her newborn daughter was expected to die within days after being BORN with meningitis.
Little Tiger-Jade Jarvis was delivered by emergency caesarean section on February 5, after a routine scan revealed that her heart rate was plummeting.
Mum Samantha Allsop, 29, only managed to glimpse her daughter, who was born not breathing, before she was rushed to a neonatal ward to be placed on a ventilator.
Medics warned that her baby might not survive the weekend, after realising she had been born with viral meningitis but miraculously she pulled through and is now a happy six-month-old.
"I had heard of Meningitis, but you don't think it will happen to you," Samantha, a shop assistant at Asda, said.
"It was scary, because we didn't know what was going to happen.
"You just think, 'Oh God, she's going to die.'"
At 36 weeks, when scans showed Tiger-Jade - her first child with partner Russell Jarvis, 34, had a plummeting heart rate; she had to have an emergency delivery at the Birmingham Heartlands Hospital.
For the first six minutes of her life, Tiger-Jade wasn't breathing.
Tiger-Jade displayed no visual symptoms of meningitis but the diagnosis was made after a lumbar puncture - a diagnostic procedure which involves taking fluid from the spine in the lower back, through a hollow needle.
Tiger-Jade was immediately placed on a course of strong antibiotics to fight the disease but doctors were still unsure how she contracted it.
Samantha, from Birmingham, recalled: "The caesarean took place after a routine scan, so Russell wasn't there and I panicked because I was on my own.
"I didn't know if my baby was ok. Doctors just kept saying they were working on her."
Russell spoke of the terrifying moments saying doctors told us “they were taking things minute by minute, hour by hour, but it was likely she wouldn't be with us by Monday."
At six days old, however, the newborn began to rally and Samantha and Russell were finally told she was "out of the woods."
Days later, she was moved to Birmingham Children's Hospital, where she has been ever since.
After two weeks, Tiger-Jade was taken off the ventilator and began breathing independently.
Then, at three weeks old, doctors said the antibiotics had worked and she was given the all clear.
"They have done brain scans and everything looks fine, but they have warned it could make her development a bit slower," Samantha continued.
"She's here, and that's all that matters."
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Tiger-Jade still has a string of other health conditions, which include having breathing difficulties, after being born with 15 holes in her heart.
Doctors had known since Samantha's 23 week scan that her baby would have a heart defect, but could not assess its severity until she was born.
"It was really stressful, and the worrying began from then," Samantha said.
"It's devastating and hard to deal with as a family."
Last Wednesday, Tiger-Jade had surgery to close two of the big holes and to unblock a valve, which was causing high blood pressure but she’ll need further surgery.
Tiger-Jade is still monitored closely, given daily medication, and has TPN for 18 hours a day, a procedure where nutrients are fed straight into a vein.
Also born with club-feet, these will cause her problems walking and she has an infused spine, which may mean she has a rare form of dwarfism but the family are still awaiting genetics results.
Russell said: "She's not meant to be here but she's strong.
"Tiger doesn't cry because it's all she's ever known, she's a brilliant baby.
"The only thing that saves me and Sam is that we are together 24 hours a day."
The couple said they want their girl to have as normal a life as possible and want to get her home by the end of the year. To help, visit www.gofundme.com/2h28dhz6