12  FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020 WESTERN MAIL
NEWS
Mum saved baby >>Mum Danielle Sampson,
saved her newborn baby
Fletcher’s life by performing
rescue breaths that she saw
on This Morning
with advice from
This Morning
A
mum says she saved her new-
born baby’s life thanks to advice
she learnt by watching Dr Ranj
on This Morning.
Danielle Sampson, 29, had been
home with her newborn for just 30 min-
utes before rushing him to hospital.
Fletcher Jack Williams had been born
the day before in the early hours of
October 19 at 5lb 13oz after Danielle
went through a long 68 hours of labour.
There were no signs at the hospital
that Fletcher’s airways were blocked,
but Danielle now knows one nostril was
blocked with mucus and her baby was
exhausting himself trying to breathe
through the other.
Aware of respiratory issues due to her
eldest son Ewan having cystic fibrosis,
Danielle soon noticed something was
not right.
She said: “He wasn’t in any distress
because of it but I noticed he dipped in
his breath and I just thought something
was not right.
“My partner Fraser kept telling me to
go to sleep because I had a hard labour
and was tired but I just couldn’t. I don’t
know what would have happened if I
had gone to sleep.
“He was really lethargic and I tried to
breastfeed him but he would not latch
because he couldn’t feed and breathe at
the same time, he wasn’t getting
enough oxygen,” said Danielle, who
lives in Gilfach Goch.
She noticed Fletcher’s breathing was
rapid, and one side of his nostril looked
sunken. Like a lot of newborn babies,
Fletcher was repeatedly sneezing and at
one point managed to dislodge
whatever it was that was blocking his
airways.
Danielle said she tried to pull the
mucus, which is common in the first 24
hours after a baby’s birth, from his nose
but Fletcher did a deep inhale to com-
pensate for the lack of oxygen previous-
ly, which caused the blockage to
become stuck again.
She and her partner made the deci-
sion to rush newborn Fletcher to the
Princess of Wales Hospital.
Sat in the back of the car holding
Fletcher for the 20-minute drive, Dan-
ielle said he soon started to deteriorate.
“I was just thinking I have got to keep
him with me, I was saying to him ‘come
on Fletcher’ but we were about 10 min-
utes away from the hospital and that is
when he went completely limp.
“He was lifeless, his eyes were rolling
at the back of his head. I was tapping his
Lydia Stephens
Reporter
lydia.stephens@walesonline.co.uk
bottom, and flipped him over on his
belly just to get him to gasp but that is
when I remembered they don’t breathe
through their mouth. And it just came
to me instantly to do the rescue
breaths.”
Danielle explained she has previous
training in doing adult CPR but has
never been taught what to do for babies
and children.
“I saw the rescue breaths with Dr
Ranj on This Morning and it must have
been about two years ago now,” she
said. “I always have This Morning on in
the background but it was one of those
things that caught my attention.
“I wasn’t even pregnant at the time
but my middle child was two at the
time. I remembered it well because with
baby CPR you are supposed to breathe
over their mouth and nose.
“I remember thinking I have to do
something but I was worried as he was
so tiny I didn’t want to breathe too hard
and I have only ever done CPR on plas-
tic dummies before.”
Danielle remembers seeing her part-
ner look back at her in complete worry
but after doing three breaths over
Fletcher’s mouth and nose, to his par-
ents’ relief, Fletcher let out an exhale.
“He wasn’t doing deep breaths but it
was enough, I had obviously moved the
mucus enough to clear his airways to
breathe.”
Danielle carried on with the rescue
breaths until they got to the hospital.
On arrival, Danielle spotted some por-
ters who rushed Fletcher through.
“I don’t know how many doctors and
nurses that were there, they gave him
oxygen straight away and put an ECG
on him, he then spent two nights in the
high dependence unit, another day on
the ward before we were allowed to take
him home again,” said Danielle.
At first, doctors first thought Fletcher
could have cystic fibrosis like his broth-
er but he was confirmed to only be a
carrier of the gene.
Now, three months later, Fletcher is
healthy and happy living at home with
his two older brothers Zachary, three,
and Ewan, eight. Fortunately Fletcher
has not suffered any long-term effects
from what happened.
Danielle added that Ewan is due to
start taking the new life-changing cystic
fibrosis drug Orkambi.