Mirren Cook was born on May 10, 2020, by emergency caesarean section at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary Hospital, weighing approximately 463 grams and smaller than the hand of her father, Kevin. Her mother, Katie, had developed pre-eclampsia and the girl was only at 25 weeks gestation.
Doctors gave him only a 10 percent chance of survival. But this premature little girl is quite a fighter and four months later she has managed to go home to her parents . This is his story.
Lots of skin-to-skin contact
Katie and Kevin Cook were happy because they were having a baby, whom they were going to name Mirren. The mother’s pregnancy, only 28 years old, was going well until at week 25 she woke up and did not feel her little girl move inside. So he decided to go get a checkup. Doctors found high levels of protein in her urine and diagnosed pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening condition that causes blood pressure to rise and can even lead to seizures.
Doctors assured them that if she had waited just two more days, Mirren and Katie would not have survived. But the little girl was born and was admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where she would stay for the next four months.
During her time in the NICU, she received five blood transfusions and the survival chances of just 10 percent rose to 70 percent, as Mirren kept fighting, improving every day.
The couple had to wait 10 days to hug their baby for the first time, an “eternity” for the mother, who assures that the bond with her little girl emerged immediately, as soon as she began to make skin to skin.
Katie thinks that intimate contact helped Mirren a lot: “I think she was comforted by feeling snuggled in and smelling us.”
But as she adds, it also helped expressing her breast milk from the beginning, when she still couldn’t hold her.
Katie has shared photos of the little girl on her Facebook account where you can see how she has improved, from the first in June to the last, which is on the cover. The evolution is impressive.
Posted by Katie Cook on Friday, May 15, 2020
Mirren was finally able to go home to her parents last week and now weighs 3,175 kilos. The couple say their little girl is getting stronger every day and they leave a little message for other parents of premature babies:
“It is completely normal to feel angry, upset and helpless during the situation. You just have to stay strong and listen to the recommendations of the doctors.”
Via | Daily record
Photos | Facebook Katie Cook
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