Despite technically dying for nine-and-a-half minutes, Lilia Fynn is now a lively 20-month-old.
A mother has spoken of the incredible moment her newborn baby “came back from the dead” after she stopped breathing for almost 10 minutes.
Despite technically dying for nine-and-a-half minutes, Lilia Fynn is now a lively 20-month-old.
Amy Fynn, 32, said her pregnancy was straightforward but after a 17-hour labour and natural birth, Lilia was not breathing.
Nurses frantically called for Mrs Fynn’s husband Liam, 28, to pull the emergency chord and little Lilia was rushed to be resuscitated.
The new parents faced an agonising wait as doctors battled to save their daughter, later learning the infant had technically been dead.
“The labour started out absolutely fine,” her mother, of Chesterfield, South Yorkshire, said. “I wanted it to be natural so I had a birthing pool and no drugs.”
“Of course, it was painful but I just kept thinking that it would all be over soon and I’d have my baby,” she continued.
“Then, everything suddenly turned frantic. A nurse shouted to Liam to pull the emergency chord and we noticed Lilia had come out completely white and wasn’t moving.
“Doctors took her to be resuscitated in another room and all we could do was wait.
“I was sobbing while Liam just sat there in shock, completely quiet. In all the panic, we didn’t even know if we’d had a boy or a girl.
“Finally hearing our beautiful baby had come back from the dead was indescribable. All I wanted to do was cuddle her.”
However, Mr and Mrs Fynn were not able to hold Lilia for another five days, as she was taken straight to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit to be placed in an incubator.
There, she was ‘cooled’ to just above hypothermic temperature in an attempt to prevent brain damage.
“I could only touch her through the hole in the incubator,” said Mrs Fynn.
“I felt so awful not being able to hold her. I’d carried her for nine months and this just wasn’t something I ever dreamed would happen.”
After three days of cooling treatment, Lilia’s parents faced a tense wait to see if she would survive being warmed back to a normal temperature.
Thankfully, she did, and after three more days of careful monitoring, doctors confirmed the newborn was officially out of critical condition.
However, because she had been starved of oxygen for so long when first born, it was warned that a brain injury was probable.
An MRI scan confirmed this, but as Lilia’s brain was still developing, it was impossible to tell the extent of the damage.
After three weeks, the family were allowed home, returning to hospital with Lilia every two weeks for physiotherapy.
However, when she began to miss milestones from an early age, doctors ran further tests and at five months old, she was diagnosed with quadriplegic
“We noticed she couldn’t roll over or put her hands up to her mouth,” said Mrs Fynn.
“She had problems with her balance and, even now, she struggles to prop herself up and can only sit up for around two or three minutes.
“She can’t crawl. She has a walking frame but more often that not, we have to carry her.
“Through all of this, the one thing she does do is smile. She loves laughing and having fun, she just needs people to help her do so.”
Now, Lilia has physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and also attends a charity centre every few months to track her progress.
Doctors have warned that she may never walk, but the family are keeping positive.
They have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to buy her a specially adapted trike and provide therapy sessions.
