A traumatised mum whose baby chokes and turns blue because of a rare condition says she risks losing her daughter every day.
When Sammy Louise O’Neill gave birth to her daughter, Bailie she was overjoyed.
After a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and a round of IVF, the 32-year-old had already beaten the odds with the birth of her first daughter, Mylie.
But when baby Bailie started wheezing while trying to feed, she thought her luck had run out.
“When she first latched onto a bottle she started choking – I was anxious about losing her,” Sammy, a nursery assistant, from Nottingham, told Need To Know.
“She was whisked away and I wasn’t allowed to see her until two hours later, where she was in an incubator and hooked up to loads of wires.
“I felt sick to my stomach.”
Bailie was eventually diagnosed with Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula (TOF), a rare congenital condition which means she was born unable to swallow.
Doctors told Sammy and her husband, James, that their daughter’s oesophagus was not connected to her stomach and they needed to operate immediately.
While surgery to fuse the two ends of the oesophagus together was successful, further complications arose.
Bailie is currently facing recurring chest problems and has recently battled with bronchiolitis.
She continues to have difficulty swallowing and it may impact her for the rest of her life.
Sammy hopes to raise awareness about the condition and warn other parents of the signs to look out for before it’s too late.
She said: “Each month, Bailie has problems that require her to stay in the hospital.
“She’s recently suffered a narrowing of her oesophageal pipe, which has made it impossible for her to eat or drink, as she’ll choke.
“We have to give her anti-reflux medication daily and monitor her breathing while she sleeps.
“If it wasn’t for our monitoring device, we would have lost her by now.
“Bailie doesn’t seem to get any rest from it all, but she’s a little fighter and I know she will keep pulling through.”
Sammy and James suffered a traumatic birth with Mylie too.
After a complicated labour, the newborn was pronounced dead for ten minutes after turning blue.
Fortunately, she recovered.
She said: “There was a risk of brain damage with Mylie and I couldn’t bear the thought of this with Bailie, too.
“All I could feel was stress flowing through me, as I hoped my baby would make it through like her sister did.
“I was so scarred by that, that I could only think of the worst outcome.
“It was a repeat of a nightmare I had to face with my first child and all those feelings came rushing back.”
TOF is thought to be caused by a problem with the development of the oesophagus while the baby is in the womb, although it’s not clear exactly why this happens.
