Leo’s story

After Leo was born, he was transferred to the Special Care Baby Unit. Here is his story...

Leo was born at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath and immediately transferred to the Special Care Baby Unit.

Here his parents Duncan and Laura have kindly shared his story…

“Leo was born by emergency C-section at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath. He needed eight minutes of resuscitation and assistance before he could breathe on his own, and was transferred to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU). He was suffering from hypothermia, suspected sepsis, hypoglycaemia and hyponatremia. He could not regulate his sugar levels, had very low salt levels and was unable to maintain body temperature.

He started off on a drip, and was also on antibiotics and in an incubator. He was then moved to a hot cot and had a line put in his foot that went all the way to his heart. He was fed via a tube and required blood tests ever two hours for a week to monitor and adapt his treatment. After a week’s 24 hour care he was able to come home.

The staff at SCBU were some of the most amazing people we had ever met. They did their best to make sure we had skin to skin contact with Leo as much as possible, and taught us how to hold him without damaging the wires. They were kind, knowledgeable and we could not have received better care for our son.

On his last night in SCBU we were given a private room on the ward so we could finally care for him ourselves, but with the staff on hand to make sure he was ok and ready to go home. They even gave us some warm clothes and a blanket to take Leo home in as all the clothes we had for him were too big and it was snowing so freezing cold.

There is no way we can ever thank the staff who looked after our baby enough, there are no words to adequately describe just how grateful we are for what they did for our precious baby boy. Not only was the care exceptional for our son, but the way we were treated as parents as well. We felt fully supported at times, and knew we could trust all the staff we met completely.

During such a scary and traumatic time, the staff made us feel safe, supported and welcome. We discovered while Leo was in SCBU that they were supported by Rockinghorse Children’s Charity, and knew immediately we needed to do something to raise some money so that other babies and parents could benefit like we did.”