Baby Beat supporter Rebecca Hamilton had hoped to spend Mother's Day last year at home, marking the occasion with her growing family, and visiting her own parents. Instead, she was one of a number of mums who found themselves on our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit here at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
On February 12th, 2021, at 28 weeks pregnant, Rebecca gave birth to her beautiful baby daughter Heidi; she weighed just 2lb 2oz.
For the first weeks of her life, Heidi was under the dedicated care of our clinical colleagues on our NICU, while Rebecca and her husband juggled their time between the hospital and their two other children at home.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions at that time, Rebecca's older children were unable to meet their brand new baby sister while she was in hospital. Mother's Day, which fell on March 14th last year, was a poignant date for Rebecca; while her older children went above and beyond to make the morning special for her, she also needed to see Heidi, and she made her way to the hospital that afternoon.
“Once there, I checked in with the staff and got Heidi out of her incubator for a special Mother’s Day cuddle,” she told us.
“I didn’t want to put her back at all; I was embracing my first Mother’s Day with her as I’m sure all mums out there would understand. Then the nurses came up to me with a little bag and card saying ‘Heidi’s got you this’ – it brought tears to my eyes before I’d even opened them.
“It was so lovely and thoughtful of them and not something I expected. The card had her footprints on along with the date, and in the bag were some toiletries, chocolate (which every breast feeding mummy loves), a teddy and a synthetic flower.
“The generous and thoughtful gift made the visit to see her, and Mother’s Day, extra special. As I sat snuggling Heidi I couldn’t help but think of how lovely it is for someone to have organised that – remembering us Neonatal Mums!”
To say thanks for this kindness and care that she and her family received last year from our NICU staff and Baby Beat, Rebecca decided she wanted to help make Mother’s Day 2022 extra special and she and Heidi called into the Baby Beat office recently to hand over a great amount of sweets, chocolates, and toiletries to give to the neonatal mums.
Rebecca was just one of many wonderful donors who helped ensure the mums and mums-to-be here at the Trust were treated to a little gift to mark this year’s Mother’s Day. Additional thanks to Amazon Logistics, Tesco Leyland and generous Baby Beat supporters for also providing donations.
Over 100 gifts in total were received and gift wrapped by our volunteers before they were distributed across the maternity, NICU and gynaecology units and to Chorley Birth Centre.
