8:20am Sunday 5th September 2010
By Lucie Richards
A BABY from Basingstoke is growing big and strong after being born with part of his bowel outside his body.
Charlie Ridgers was born six weeks prematurely, weighing 4lbs 4oz and had to have two blood transfusions straight away.
He was put in an incubator with his bowel suspended in a special contraption called a silo. But after 36 hours the bowel returned naturally into his body, meaning he did not need surgery.
Altogether, he spent the first two months of his life in and out of incubators, receiving fluids along little tubes. But thanks to the care he received, is now back with his mum and dad, healthy and healing.
His mum Davee said: “I wasn’t able to hold him when he was born, they took him straight to the neonatal unit.
“He was in an incubator and had cannulas in his hands, arms, legs, everywhere. He had to have a long line in his scalp where they shaved off his hair and put a big needle through to sit just above his heart.
“He had lovely hair and it was heart-breaking when they had to shave it off. That was the hardest part because I came down and didn’t recognise my own baby.”
Suspicions that all was not well began when Davee, 19, went for her second scan at Basingstoke hospital – about 12 weeks into pregnancy. She was told her baby had gastroschisis and was referred to Princess Anne hospital in Southampton.
The condition, which affects about one in every 7,000 births, means the foetus develops a hole in the abdominal wall next to the umbilical cord. Some of the bowel escapes through the hole and continues to grow outside the abdomen as the baby develops.
Doctors do not know what causes the condition, which increases the chances of premature birth.
During pregnancy Davee, of Worting Road, Basingstoke, had to have regular scans because the baby did not move, and the young mother-to-be repeatedly suffered from pain on her right side.
On the day of Charlie’s birth, Davee spent several hours waiting at Basingstoke hospital where her doctor told her she was not in labour. But her mother, Stacey Dawe, drove her to Southampton hospital.
By then she was found to be in labour and with concern mounting about her baby’s racing heart rate, Charlie David William Ridgers was born by caesarean at 11.10pm, on April 20.
During the caesarean procedure doctors damaged Charlie’s arm for which he has been having physiotherapy sessions at Basingstoke hospital and he may have to have an operation on it in the future.
After 62 days in hospital Charlie is now back home with his mum and 24-year-old dad Kyle Griffiths, who has moved down from High Wycombe.
Davee, a former Brighton Hill Community College pupil and catering student at BCOT, has been taking Charlie to hospital for check-ups and will not feed him solid food until he is about eight months old to avoid potential blockages in his bowels.
She says she owes a lot to the support of her family, including her sisters Claire, 21, and Laura, 15, and brother George, 13. She said: “They love him to bits and they do so much for me. My mum has been doing everything for me. I want to say a big thank you to my family, I would be lost without them.”
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