Jett Morris was born weigh up less than a bag of sugar and lesser than his father’s hand. But his parents were simply reassured that he was alive after having been told he would certainly not survive and they should abort him. When his mother Mhairi’s waters broke at just 20 weeks, doctors advised the pregnancy was non-viable and prepared her for a termination.
Jett, who is thriving and of late celebrated his first birthday, would not be here today if their parents would not have confronted their doctor’s advice and had not been determined to bring him into this world.
Jett was born prematurely at 25 weeks weighing just 1.4lbs having survived for five weeks in the womb after his mother’s waters broke.
But his parents said that before he was born, they were constantly pressured by doctors to end the pregnancy. They claim that the medical staff gave them just five minutes to come to terms with a termination.
Jett’s mother said that doctors even didn’t see him as a child yet and they just called him a non-viable foetus. She was devastated with such a cold response but she refused and convinced herself that her unborn baby was healthy and five weeks later, Jett was born.
She further said that she was in the early pregnancy unit and no-one from paediatrics came to talk to her about other options. The doctors just said that she have to go for a termination because there’s nothing else they can do. But she just had a 20 week scan and everything was perfect and finding out it was a boy made it very hard to accept a termination.
When she came back from the early pregnancy unit and talked to her husband that she is not going back to the unit, the doctor looked at his watch and rolled his eyes at her as if she was wasting time. She then told to her husband that they have to get out of that place.
Mrs Morris suffered preterm premature rupture of membranes and later diagnosed with placenta praevia. She was told that she was likely to go into labour within 48 hours and the baby would die. But days later she still hadn’t given birth and was allowed to go home.
Twelve days later she started bleeding and was rushed to hospital. But the local medical centre only equipped to deal with children born after 28 weeks, the couple had to travel 80 miles to a hospital in Portsmouth.
On reaching there, doctors warned them that their son could be brain damaged and would probably die at birth because his lungs would not be developed at this stage of pregnancy.
However Jett defied the odds and came out kicking and even let out a small ‘squeak’ before being rushed to an incubator. Jett suffered with chronic lung disease and jaundice which he quickly recovered from after his lungs and organs developed. He was finally allowed home almost three weeks before his original due date.
Though Jett has two small holes in his heart it is not thought they will ever cause a problem for him and he was taken off an oxygen machine after couple of months.
Parents said that they have a happy outcome but Mrs Morris worry that other mothers could have had an abortion when their babies might have survived.
Mrs. Morris claims that she was forced to Google her options rather than being given by doctors and now hopes her story will be seen by other pregnant women doing the same thing.
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust’s Chief said that the staffs were working with Mrs Morris to resolve her concerns about her treatment. They said that while Mrs. Morris was with them, she received high quality clinical care and was provided with information about the range of options available to her in her circumstances, as well as having these options discussed in detail.
The Trust’s Chief further said that the team who cared for Mrs. Morris pulled out all stops to keep both her and her child safe throughout her high-risk pregnancy and following this, they transferred her to a more specialist hospital so that she received the best possible care for her condition.
The Trust is delighted that over a year on, both mother and son are healthy and well. The Trust’s Chief also said that they have only very recently learned of Mrs. Morris’s concerns as no complaints were raised earlier. They are now working closely with Mrs. Morris and her family to understand what happened in detail.
