“I was heartbroken …” Mum Whose Baby Had Less than One Percent Chance of Survival

Sheila Bhatti, a 24-year-old woman from Uxbridge, England, gave birth to a baby boy after the doctors advised her to consider terminating it, due to pregnancy-related complications.

Daily Mail reports that Bhatti’s water broke and started slowly leaking when she was only 16 weeks gone. Her baby’s life was at risk, yet, she had no clue what was going on.

She said, “At first it was just tiny amounts, but a few days later I woke up in the night to find my pyjama bottoms were wet through.”

Bhatti did not think too much of it, especially as her gynecologist assured her that she had probably just wet herself or was suffering from increased vaginal discharge, which is a normal occurrence in pregnancy.

The expectant mum thus left the hospital without an examination which would have revealed her water had broken. Later, when she went for her scan at Hillingdon Hospital in Uxbridge, Middlesex, she realised something was wrong.

“The midwife looked concerned. There was a heartbeat, but she couldn’t see the baby. Then she told me that my waters had ruptured, and at first I was relieved because it meant I hadn’t lost my baby,” she said.

A consultant, however, explained the situation to her when she was taken up to triage. It was then that she understood the gravity of what had happened. She was told that she had just suffered, pre-term premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), and that the damp patches she had been noticing on her pyjamas was her water breaking.

She continued, “The doctors told me they were certain my baby couldn’t survive to a viable gestation and that I should consider terminating there and then. I couldn’t believe it.”

According to her, the doctors could not even do a proper scan to determine the sex of the child, because there was little amniotic fluid left around the baby. Still, she refused to end the life growing inside her and was admitted to a ward where doctors said nature would take its course.

“I loved my baby already and I couldn’t terminate,” Bhatti said. “And when my baby continued to cling on despite having been given a less than one per cent survival chance my husband Wahab agreed that where there was life there was hope.”

She was placed on a month’s bed rest, during which time she was given intensive care. Her blood pressure was checked as often as every three hours and her blood was constantly tested for infection three times a week. When the baby was almost at the 24-week mark, the age at which a premature baby is deemed viable and medics will attempt to save its life, she was moved to Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital where they were better equipped to deal with premature babies. Yet, even when her baby was still hanging on at 24 weeks, doctors enquired about funeral arrangements.

She said, “I was heartbroken. I kept telling them, ‘But my baby is still alive’. They looked at me with pity, replying, ‘I think it’s very unlikely it will survive’. I wasn’t naïve. I knew my baby could have disabilities and other problems, but I knew that whatever difficulties it faced I would be there.”

Now, Bhatti is a mum of a healthy baby boy, she named Rayyan, “which means ‘wise’, as he was already beating the odds of survival.”

Photo credit: Stewart Williams/Photo-Features