A new Paige in family’s history

May 6 2008 by Sam Wood, The Journal

A BABY born three months early was allowed home for the first time yesterday after intensive treatment in hospital.

Tiny Paige Surtees weighed just two pounds when she was born in January, having been due in April.

After months of intensive treatment at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, Paige has been allowed home to Walton Road, Slatyford, in the west of the city, with parents Richard Surtees and Tracy Ridley.

Paige still needs to be linked up to an oxygen machine 24 hours a day until she is strong enough to breathe normally.

And it will probably take another 18 months before she has a complete all-clear from medical staff.

But last night Tracy, whose three-year-old son Richard was also born prematurely, said she was delighted to have her daughter home.

She added: “I’m pleased she is home but I feel really scared as well.

“I don’t think I’ll sleep a wink tonight. We have to keep watching her to see if she is still breathing properly and to check if she is the right colour.

“At the moment she seems well but we won’t know for a while if there are any long-term effects.

“We have had loads of friends and relatives round, all wanting to look at her and cuddle her. But I’m just scared the tubes will fall out of her nose.

“I have to keep watching Richard as well to make sure he doesn’t do something by accident which might harm Paige.”

Tracy, 25, said she was very grateful to the nurses and doctors who have looked after Paige.

“I wrote the nurses a card and bought them some chocolates but I couldn’t thank them enough really. Without them both my children wouldn’t have survived.”

Tracy has supported charity Action Medical Research, which campaigns for more research into the causes of premature birth.

Clare Coleman, spokeswoman for the charity, said: “Action Medical Research is delighted to hear that baby Paige is now well enough to come home after 15 weeks on the Special Care Baby Unit.

“We are also extremely grateful to Tracy and her family for all they’ve done to help support our Stand Up for Tiny Lives Campaign at what must have been a difficult and emotional time for them.

“There are many more families like Tracy’s who need to know why early labour happens and how it might be prevented.

“While more premature babies, like Paige, are surviving because of better care, our knowledge of the basic causes of pre-term labour has not kept pace.

“Unfortunately, doctors don’t know what causes some babies to be born too soon and, as Tracy has twice experienced, there are only limited ways of slowing labour once it starts.”

Anyone who wants more information on the campaign can go to www.standupfortinylives.org