World Prematurity Day: Father shares memories of daughter’s premature birth and time in a Preston Hospital

Walking through eerily empty hospital corridors, eventually greeted by the comforting beeps of monitoring equipment in the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) at Preston’s Sharoe Green Hospital, is a memory that will stay with me forever.

It was July 2004 when my partner’s waters broke prematurely, and she was rushed by ambulance from Blackpool Victoria Hospital to what was then Manchester Hope Hospital (now Salford Royal).

When we arrived, the medical team in Manchester explained that they would induce labour later that day. She was also given steroids to help develop our baby’s lungs.

Then we waited.

A few hours later, a mobile incubator, which looked like a prop from the 1990s sci-fi film The Matrix, was wheeled into the room, covered in wires and monitors. It was both a worry and a comfort.

At 7.47pm, our daughter came into the world, a whole six and a half weeks early and weighing just 4lb 5oz. She was checked, swaddled and handed to me, fitting snugly into my cupped hands.

After a short stay in Manchester, we were transferred to the soon-to-close Sharoe Green Hospital in Preston, where our newborn daughter would stay for the next two weeks.

Each morning, we would arrive and make the same journey through the hospital’s empty corridors to SCBU, spending the day with her before having to travel home each evening, praying that she would be OK.

Much of the care at Sharoe Green Hospital had been moved to Royal Preston by this point, but SCBU was one of the few services that remained.

Our daughter was in her own incubator in a small room alongside several other babies. Each day, we would arrive and notice that the incubators had been rearranged. Sometimes there were more, sometimes fewer, and we were too frightened to ask why.

Although we were constantly on edge, we didn’t realise at the time just how lucky we were. Our baby could breathe on her own and quickly progressed from being tube-fed to taking a bottle. Other than mild jaundice, she was well.

Over those few short weeks, we learnt to bathe, dress and feed this still incredibly small human being. We were even given emergency first aid and resuscitation training in case the worst happened, something we thankfully never needed.

And at 4lb 1oz, we were then finally able to bring her home.

I often think about that journey, the incredible doctors and nurses involved, and the enormous resolve you find within yourself to keep going through the most frightening of times.

And I think about all those other babies and their families, hoping that they too get to experience the moment when they can finally take their little ones home.