Amy was born at 1lb 10oz and was 30cm long

Story By Claire Elliot

BORN three months premature, little Amy Hutcheon was so tiny she could fit in her father’s hand.

She weighed just 1lb 10oz and, from head to toe, and measured only 30cm - the length of a classroom ruler.

The battling baby was so fragile she spent nine weeks in an incubator fighting for life until she was fully developed.

Her mother Kerri Henderson, 20, did not even know if her baby was alive or dead when she awoke from a general anaesthetic following an emergency caesarean section just 28 weeks into her pregnancy.

But, just over a year on and against the odds, Amy is like any other healthy 13-month-old tot and is already on to her next big challenge - learning to walk and talk.
 
“She’s a little fighter”, said Miss Henderson, from Newmachar, Aberdeenshire.

“I am so proud of how well she is doing.

“She’s 13 months but she should only be 10 so she doesn’t have the physical strength to walk, but she thinks she has.

“She can stand and will take a couple of steps and she loves crawling and is just into everything.

“She can say ‘dad’ and is starting to say ‘mum’ a well, which is nice.

“When I watched her on her birthday I never thought we’d get to this stage. It was only as time went on in the [neonatal] unit that we realised she was going to come home.”

Now to say thank you to the doctors and nurses who helped save their little girl, Miss Henderson and her partner Andrew Hutcheon, a 22-year-old assistant bar manager, have handed over a cheque for more than £4,000 to staff at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital.

Miss Henderson, who works in administration, said: “The staff were just so good and without them Amy would not be here.

“She is now about 19lb and is so strong.

“It’s amazing what they can provide for a baby born so early and be able to see light at the end of it.”

Amy, who was delivered 12 weeks early on June 3, 2010 was so tiny her hands were only about the size of a £1 coin and could wrap around her mother‘s finger.

She spent a month in intensive care and a further three weeks in the high dependency unit.

But remarkably the tot, who spent nine weeks in hospital, only needed oxygen for the first day of her life and was off all other treatments to aid her breathing within seven weeks.

And the tot was allowed home three weeks before her original due date of August 25.

Miss Henderson, who had to wait almost two weeks before she got to hold her baby for the first time, had enjoyed a normal pregnancy.

But at 28 weeks the baby was measuring smaller than expected and tests revealed Miss Henderson’s blood pressure was “through the roof”.

She was suffering the end stages of pre-eclampsia - a condition that can result in the placenta, which supplies blood and oxygen to the foetus, failing to work.
- and had to be admitted to Aberdeen Maternity Hospital.

The young mum was then given drugs to try and reduce her blood pressure and prolong the need to deliver the baby.

But, just three days later, when Miss Henderson started to bleed and the baby’s heartbeat dropped, she was whisked into theatre for an emergency caesarean section.

Recalling her ordeal, Miss Henderson, said: “I had to be put to sleep because there was no time to give me an epidural so when I woke up it was quite scary not knowing what was going on. I didn’t know if my baby was alive.

“But the staff were really good, they brought me a photo of her. She had a little oxygen mask on and a green hat and she was just so tiny.”

She got to see her daughter for the first time for half-an-hour the next day but it was another week-and-a-half before she got to cuddle her.

Miss Henderson said: “The staff brought me a photo down every day. But after a week and a half I got to hold her for the first time. It was nice but it was scary because she was so fragile. Her hand was only the size of the tip of her dad’s finger.

“Now she‘s cheeky, smiley, clever and is certainly keeping us on our toes and I wouldn’t change her for the world.”