I wanted to share this great article from Bromley, Lewisham, Greenwich Mind, an organisation who’s there for anyone struggling with their mental health. Project Worker, Laura Corrigan, shares her views about how my new book, Twenty-four Plus Six, has great potential to improve experiences for parents and families. In particular, she feels it will be helpful in fighting the stigma that still surrounds perinatal mental health. Beckenham Mum’s powerful book fights mental health stigma ..read more

It’s finally here! Today, 24th October 2023, is publication day for my debut memoir Twenty-four Plus Six! It’s amazing to hold a physical copy of the book in my hand. If you haven’t had chance to order your copy yet, just pop into your local bookshop and ask them to order it for you, or purchase online from your retailer of choice. It’s available in both Kindle format and paperback.  I’m donating 5% of my author royalties to 6 different charities over the next few months, including Ronald McDonald House Charities UK and The Oliver Fisher Special Care ..read more

The birth of a baby is often celebrated as a joyous occasion, but when your little one is born sick or premature and placed in neonatal care, the experience can be rather different. There’s no triumphant homecoming. No “Welcome New Baby” balloons. No fussing aunts cooing over the newborn. Instead there are tubes, wires and machines. Incessant beeping and alarms. Cannulas, lumbar punctures and constant heel pricks. Blue rubber gloves and the smell of Clinell wipes. There’s separation, uncertainty, fear, guilt, exhaustion, confusion and stress. The impact on you as a mum or dad, and on your wid ..read more

“Never before had there been such a sterile sibling bonding experience. It was love through plastic.” Excerpt from Twenty-four Plus Six, my upcoming memoir Our eldest daughter was only 3-years-old when her sister arrived in the world 15 weeks early. It had the same effect as a meteor, crashing into the middle of her world and obliterating everything she knew to be normal. Overnight, she traded her carefree Frozen games for the tubes, probes, ventilators and incubators of neonatal intensive care. It was months before she could cuddle her baby sister, kiss her head and hold her hand. Instead ..read more

“My face conveyed the words I didn’t speak. [The consultant] may as well have been telling me how he preferred his coffee or where he liked to go on holiday because he had lost me after the word ‘fractured’. The tiny baby in front of me, my baby, baby Amalie, had not even reached her due date and already had a broken arm.” Excerpt from my upcoming memoir Defying Death and Demons – A Family Journey Through Neonatal Care Chapter 27 Walking through the park yesterday, my eldest daughter asked me if I’d ever broken a bone. ‘No, I haven’t,’ I replied. ‘Has Dad?’ ‘No, don’t think so.’ ‘Have I?’ ‘N ..read more

“I sighed deeply, exhausted and defeated by the realisation that feeding my child, the most primal and natural role that a mother can try to fulfil for her baby, would, of course, be yet another clinical event.” Excerpt from Chapter 34 of my upcoming memoir One of the things I found hardest about the time my youngest daughter spent in hospital was the, often unavoidable, medicalisation of my role as a mother. What would normally be private, intimate acts of love and care between mother and child had to be performed in front of one or more nurses or clinicians. Most of these acts required a h ..read more

“She lay utterly motionless save for the ventilator’s rhythmic, almost robotic, inflation and deflation of her lungs. I wondered if she had any awareness of my presence at all. Or indeed any awareness of anything.” Excerpt from Chapter 21 of my upcoming memoir Today, 17th November, is World Prematurity Day, which is a global movement to raise awareness of premature birth and the devastating impact it can have on families. I’ve been posting to this blog for a while now, raising awareness and trying to tackle various difficult ethical, moral and social questions about premature birth. It’s ins ..read more

September is Neonatal Intensive Care Awareness Month #NICUAwarenessMonth when people from around the world come together to show their support for families with babies in the neonatal unit. The aim is to honour families experiencing a stay in neonatal care, and those in the medical profession who care for them. My daughter spent 3 months in neonatal intensive care across 3 different units after she was born 15 weeks early in 2019. They were the toughest months of our lives, every day wondering what kind of complication our tiny baby would suffer next, every day fearing she wouldn’t survive to ..read more

May is an important month for raising awareness, fighting stigma and signposting to sources of support for anyone facing mental health difficulties. In the US, 1st May marks the start of Mental Health Awareness Month, and Mental Health Awareness Week is 9-15th May in the UK. Families with babies in neonatal care can struggle with their mental health. I certainly did during the five months that my little girl was in hospital. Constantly juggling spending time with your baby on the unit, looking after other dependents and honouring work and other life commitments, whilst potentially living away ..read more

My niece, Rosie, is only 22 and has written some beautiful and powerful poetry in the last few years. She’s kindly allowed me to post the following two poems on my blog because they are meaningful in the context of prematurity. The first poem Rosie did not write specifically about prematurity, but agrees with me that it’s sadly often very fitting: Fly high It feels wrong to be talking about you in the past tense. It’s as though your story has ended when it was just beginning. Your wings were clipped Just as you were learning to fly. By Rosie Lilly Globally, prematurity is the leading cause o ..read more