Monday August 30, 2010
“Miracle” as Baby Begins Breathing after Two Hours
By Hilary White
SYDNEY, Australia, August 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Doctors were baffled in April when a premature baby boy whom they had pronounced dead appeared to come back to life after two hours of being held by his mother. Staff had given child, Jamie, a twin, to his mother to hold and to “say goodbye” after the 27-week gestation boy had been pronounced dead. The attending doctor had spent 20 minutes after the birth trying to get the boy to breathe.
Kate Ogg, of Sydney, Australia, held the child directly next to her skin and when he showed signs of life, gave him some breast milk on the end of her finger.
But Kate and husband David Ogg now say that they fear that their son, who was born with his twin sister Emily, may be brain damaged or suffer other long-term medical complications because their doctor didn’t believe them when the boy showed what the parents believed were signs of life. After Jamie began moving, they asked the doctor to return, but he refused, sending the midwife back to say the baby was just going through death throes.
“We knew the doctor wasn’t coming back in, so we called for him again,” Kate Ogg later told an interviewer on Australian TVl. “In the interim, the midwife took some footage and my mother and my sister were taking photos for us. Eventually my husband said, ‘Go and tell the doctor we weren’t ready to listen to his explanation of how the baby died, can he come and explain it again,’ and that’s when he returned.”
It was two more hours before Jamie received medical attention.
A friend of the Oggs told the Daily Mail that, “To be fair, the doctor genuinely believe Jamie was dead. When he came back into the room, even he told Kate it was a miracle,” but added that if Jamie suffers aftereffects from the lack of treatment, there could be legal action.
Mrs. Ogg told the Australian television program Today Tonight that hearing that her child was dead “was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt.”
When Jamie was handed to her, she said she wanted to hold him next to her skin.
“I took my gown off and arranged him on my chest with his head over my arm and just held him. He wasn’t moving at all and we just started talking to him.
“We told him what his name was and that he had a sister. We told him the things we wanted to do with him throughout his life.”
Jamie started gasping but his parents were told this was just a “reflex” action.
“But then I felt him move as if he were startled, then he started gasping more and more regularly. I gave Jamie some breast milk on my finger, he took it and started regular breathing normally.
“I thought ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger. He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, ‘I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it’.”