Next month from the 12th to the 17th of February it is Heart week and the charity Tiny Tickers is again encouraging you to raise awareness and funds to help babies babies ensuring they are given a fighting chance to beat their condition.....
One in every 125 babies is born with a heart problem – that’s more than 5,000 newborns each year in the UK. Heart conditions are the most common and deadly birth defect in babies – responsible for 1 in every 13 infant deaths.
Last year over 1,000 newborns were discharged from UK hospitals with no one realising they had a life-threatening heart condition.
Babies with undetected heart defects will often fall into the early stages of heart failure significantly impacting their long term quality of life and associated risks of heart failure including brain damage.
Both of my girls were discharged from hospital when they were babies with heart problems....No one knew, including me. It was only down to a freak accident of Ellie jamming her fingers in a door that their conditions were found.....In 2009 both of my girls had open heart, life saving surgery. Without the surgery they would have died in their teenage years.....The teenage years seemed a long way away then but Becky is 14 now. Without the freak accident and the surgery she may have been dead by now....
Tiny Tickers want to increase early detection rates of cardiac conditions....Rates for heart problems being detected during pregnancy have doubled since they launched! They train sonographers to spot defects during routine pregnancy scans, support families with a diagnosis, campaign to improve service standards and generally raise awareness!
Just £1,000 is enough to provide training for up to 10 sonographers. If they can raise £10,000 though Heart Week 2017 they will be able to help more babies and their parents this year.
Here is how Tiny Tickers can use the money you raise:
£100 - Provides specialist on-site training for a sonographer to be able to detect heart problems during a pregnancy scan.
£500 - Lets us put information materials about heart conditions in 850 baby clinics and GP surgeries.
£2,500 - Produces a training video into one of the most common forms of heart defect for sonographers to refer to during scans.
You can sign up for a FREE Heart Week fundraising kit full of tips, advice, ideas, games and your very own collecting box...
So scary to think that Becky might not have been here today had Ellie not jammed her fingers in the door. Thank goodness your girls' heart conditions were picked up when they were. Funnily enough I've posted today about Heart Week too! :-)
ReplyDeleteIt is awful to think what could have happened....
DeleteThanks Louise x
Hi Kim, your story could have been so different had it not been for that accident. I realised one of your girls had a heart problem, I had no idea that both of your girls did and have both undergone open heart surgery. That must have been so tough for you.
ReplyDeleteThe money needed to train sonographers and help raise awareness seems so s little compared to save a life. I hope plenty is raised.
Thank you for linking up with the #MMBC.
xx
It was a terrible time for us but they're both doing great now. Thank you!
DeleteI dread to think what could have happened x