Premature baby saved by a sandwich bag is now happy and healthy
A baby born at 26 weeks has defied the odds and is now a thriving one-year-old.
Little Faith Findley was delivered by an emergency cesarean section in September 2020 – three months before her due date.
Doctors at James Cook University Hospital immediately put the tiny baby in a see-through sandwich bag – designed to stop an infant’s body temperature from dropping.
Faith – who weighed less than half a bag of sugar – was then rushed to intensive care and parents, Vanessa and Kurt Findlay, were unsure if their daughter would survive.
Vanessa, 32, said: ‘They put her in this little bag to keep her warm and to mimic my womb.
‘I was so shocked at how small she was.
‘She looked so tiny with all the wires and in her incubator.
‘We had no idea if she would make it.’
Over the course of 79 days, Faith battled with a hole in her heart and a brain lesion.
The devastating news was another blow for Vanessa – who had already struggled with a difficult pregnancy.
The 32-year old – who is also a mum to 13-year-old Timothy and nine-year-old Kae – suffered hyperemesis gravidarum (a condition causing constant vomiting and nausea for most of a pregnancy), so was on bed rest.
During the pregnancy, doctors also discovered Vanessa had little to no cervix left – so she had emergency surgery to have a stitch put in, to keep her cervix closed.
Further tests also revealed it was likely that Vanessa would go into early labour – an event that happened just weeks later.
‘At 22 weeks my water broke but they kept me in the hospital and tried to keep the baby inside me as long as possible,’ she explains.
At 26 weeks, Faith was born weighing 1lbs 15oz.
Vanessa recalls: ‘They had to take my stitches out first and then in 15 minutes she was out.
‘When she was born she let out a little squeaky cry then she was rushed away to intensive care.
‘She was just so tiny with all of these wires around her.’
After months in hospital, little Faith pulled through and Vanessa and Kurt were able to take their daughter home in December.
Now, more than a year on, Faith is a happy and healthy one-year-old and is doing really well.
‘She’s still quite a tiny one-year-old but she’s a little fighter,’ Vanessa adds.
‘I’m so happy that she is healthy and thriving.’
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