How can we ignore such a need?” she wrote. From that question came Bliss, the charity that helps improve care for “babies born too soon, too sick, too small”.
Premature birth is twice as common as breast cancer and more than twice as common as prostate cancer, yet it remains one of the most poorly resourced areas in the NHS. One in nine babies – 82,000 babies a year – are born prematurely and the mortality rate in the UK is the highest in western Europe.
Bliss aims to change that by researching into the causes of premature birth and the factors that affect a child’s long-term prospects. The charity also provides information and emotional support for parents of premature babies.
Small sums of money can make a big difference to parents at the desperate moment when their child disappears into a special care baby unit, attached to a forest of wires.
Bliss would like to do more to help them: £10 will provide telephone support for a distressed family, £12 will pay for a set of information booklets to be sent to a family, £60 will fund a neonurse on a Bliss study day
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