Katrina Pugh of Newmains in Scotland was 39 years old, and at 24 weeks pregnant she was experiencing back pain. Just at the end of her second trimester, she went to the hospital one February day to get checked out.
She was immediately admitted and told she was actually in labor, and that her twins were on the way. First, Jennifer was born, at a tiny 1lb 2oz, followed by her brother George at 1lb 5oz, well ahead of her mid-June due date.
The twins were rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) where they were put on life support. Katrina and her partner Barry Fleming, 31, rushed to be by their fragile babies.
“George and Jennifer were formed but they just didn’t look like you’d expect a baby to look. You could see through them and their eyes were still closed,” she told The Daily Record. “They were so tiny and you could sit them in the palm of your hand. We asked if they were going to be alright, and no one could tell us. They said they would do everything they could. It was only when we were getting them home that they admitted they didn’t know if they were going to make it.”
The tiny babies needed a lot of different procedures during their NICU stay. Both had retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), requiring injections in their eyes to treat it. And while George was initially the heavier of the two, Jennifer quickly surpassed him and started doing better. Boys in the NICU frequently risk poorer outcomes, and the same was true of George. He needed four surgeries, and at one point his belly was distended to the point of making it difficult for him to breathe.
After 107 days, Jennifer was eventually able to come home with mom and dad. But George stayed under the watchful eye of his care team until August – 180 days after his birth. But their journey still wasn’t done, as Jennifer eventually had to return to the hospital yet again for a brief time.
“It was such an emotional journey,” Katrina said. “We only had Jennifer home for six days and she had to be taken back in and ventilated, she had bronchiolitis and was back in for 11 days. She is still on oxygen.”
Like most preemies, the twins will likely be on the smaller side in their childhood. When people ask, Katrina tells them their adjusted age. “People ask what age they are and I say six months, but technically they’re only 10 weeks old,” said Katrina.
Overall, Katrina and Barry are so grateful to have their babies home, and grateful for their care team at University Hospital Wishaw.
“The nurses and doctors at Wishaw are all amazing. The level of care was incredible and for those beds to be taken away is just crazy. I wouldn’t have my [babies] if it wasn’t for them. We owe them so much.”
The twins are lucky to have the care they did. Other babies born on the cusp of 24 weeks haven’t been so lucky; baby Maddalena Douse of Sussex, born at 23 weeks, was saved by a pair of scissors on the scale. Doctors decided to treat her, and later the accidental weight was noticed. Another baby born at 23 weeks at Burnley General Hospital was not given life saving care and was left to die, despite hospital directives to support babies born at 22 weeks, Live Action News reports.
In general, messaging around giving life-saving care to early preemies has been mixed in the past, with one north Birmingham pediatrician wondering if saving preemies is fiscally feasible. “Overall survival rates have not improved,” she said to the BBC in 2011. “We are keeping them alive longer before they die. You spend all that money for weeks and then the baby doesn’t survive. It does not seem like a good use of public money.” But as technology improves, it seems babies are surviving younger and younger.
In addition, polling from the same organization that does BBC polls shows that 60% of the UK population – and 70% of women – support lowering the abortion threshold from its current point at 24 weeks to 20 weeks.
The Scottish Government currently plans to downgrade the NICU at University Hospital Wishaw, rendering it unable to give care to babies born before 27 weeks. However, a campaign by NICU parents has successfully brought a petition before a Parliamentary committee to fight the move.
