Northampton couple running 48km to help neonatal ward that helped save son's life

• Watch a video report by ITV News Anglia's Graham Stothard

A mother and father are raising money for their local hospital, after staff helped their newborn son through the first weeks of his life.

William Smith was born more than six weeks early in August 2021, to his parents Steve and Steph. 

To give him the best chance of survival he was put in an incubator on the Gossett Ward at Northampton General.

His parents called the treatment he received "incredible" and said without the amazing work of the nurses: “William might not be here today.”

Steve White, Will’s father, said: “It was really tough and impossibly hard. We had that support in the hospital, and that's the reason we had started raising money because of those guys, those super heroes that helped Will through his first 30 days.”

They aimed to raise £5,000 for an incubator, a target they have beaten.

Their challenge was to run 48 kilometres to reflect his birthday, 4 August. To do that they ran 2.28 kilometres every hour for 21 hours. They started at 1.22am, the time William was born.

Steph, Will’s mum, said: “There's been so many people come forward, friends, families, people we don't know, or just people that have heard about the challenge, who've had experiences of having a premature or a full term baby, who's been sick and needed some care in Gosset Ward or in another centre. You don't realise how many people this touches.”