'I just didn't want her to be in pain anymore': Mum tells of four-week-old baby's final moments

The mother of a premature four-week-old baby girl has spoken of the heart-breaking final moments before her daughter passed away in her arms.

Alison Elliott opened up about how she and her husband Jon were called in to see Hattie and how the doctors had to resuscitate her daughter multiple times.

She said: "We were just about to go to bed, about 11pm and we got a phone call that said 'you need to come in now, we need a blood transfusion'.

"They'd resuscitated her a couple of times and she'd responded, they took some blood from me and it worked for a little bit but the doctors were so amazing they said 'this is what's happening, but it doesn't look good, as long as you want us to try we'll keep trying'."

"I just didn't want her to be in pain anymore."Doctors had brought Hattie back five times before the family made the heart-wrenching decision that the four-week-old had suffered enough and let her go.

"I said to my husband 'I think enough's enough' I didn't want her to have last minutes of pain."

Hattie was born ten weeks early in May 2020 at the Royal Derby Hospital and she seemed healthy, like her twin brother Hamish.

But she struggled to drink milk from her bottle and needed to be fed through a tube.

The family were warned the longer Hattie depended on a supply line at The Royal Derby Hospital, the greater chance she'd have of developing blood poisoning.

Owing to Covid restrictions in the hospital, Alison would spend the most time at Hattie's bedside while her husband would be next to Hamish.

Hattie had contracted quite an aggressive sepsis which started in her bowel and only took about six hours to claim the little girl's life.

'Hattie was getting a bit restless and looking a bit grey'

When the diagnosis came, Alison, who'd been ill herself, was able to hold Hattie for the longest time outside of the incubator, but she noticed something wasn't right with her daughter.

She said: "I read her stories and sang to her and she threw up on me, the first time I'd ever been thrown up on by a baby.

"She was getting a bit restless and looking a bit grey, so I said to a nurse I think I want to put her back into the incubator, she didn't look a nice colour."

Alison added: "The really sad thing is the day she contracted Sepsis it was the most she'd ever taken of milk and we got so excited."

The nurses started Hattie on antibiotics and told the family to go home and they'd call them if anything changes.

Speaking about that awful moment, Alison was full of praise for the staff at the Royal Derby Hospital and how they helped the family through such a traumatic moment in their lives.

She said: "They were really good, they brought my son down and it was the first time we could hold both their hands at the same time.

"They kept us informed, they let us get to the cot and hold her hand and talk to her and then we made the decision that enough was enough.

"They were amazing, they were so good and then she got to have her last breaths in my arms."

Alison works at the Royal Derby Hospital, in fact, her office was close to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where her twins stayed.

She's described the nurses and doctors who helped with both Hattie and Hamish as "amazing".

She said they couldn't have done enough for them, including things like turning a room on the ward into 'Hattie's parent's room' so the family had a quiet, private space to grieve for the four-week-old daughter.

The nurses 'let us walk Hattie in a pram to the mortuary, which meant everything to us'

"They even gave us a camera to capture every moment - which was the best idea, but something I would never have thought of," said Alison.

"One nurse, Louise, even held my hand whilst I called my mum to tell her what happened.

"When it was time to say goodbye, Hattie's nurses came to say their goodbyes, which was so thoughtful.

"They even let us walk Hattie in a pram to the mortuary, which meant everything to us, especially my husband."

Alison and her husband Jon were able to take Hamish home a short time later when the little boy grew strong enough, and they're now settling into life as a family.