A mum has described the horrifying moment she was forced to perform CPR to save her newborn baby's life when he suddenly stopped breathing and went blue during a feed.
Dakota Tarry-Spencer, 23, was at a family member’s house feeding one of her eight-week-old twins a bottle of milk when he went ‘blue and floppy’ on 23 August.
Doting mum Dakota ran outside screaming for help before starting mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions on little Marley while a passer-by called an ambulance.
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Paramedics arrived at the scene and rushed Marley to St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, where he was put on a ventilator and treated for RSV virus and bronchiolitis.
Marley remained on a ventilator until 27 August before being transferred to Northampton General Hospital.
The little trooper was finally allowed home yesterday (1 September) and mum-of-three Dakota, who is a pharmacy worker, has now started a petition for baby CPR training to be free for expectant parents on the NHS.
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She believes just 15 minutes of training could save a baby's life and her online petition has already attracted over 6,000 signatures in just two days.
Dakota, who is also mum to eight-week-old Winnie and two-year-old Nevaeh, said: "I pretty much froze when it first happened. I was all by myself. We had gone to see family in Surrey but they had gone out. Marley was just feeding from a bottle and all of a sudden he just stopped breathing.”
She continued: "Within seconds I’d realised if I don’t do something he will not survive until the ambulance arrived. He was completely blue and floppy. I instantly started doing mouth-to-mouth and then chest compressions.
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"He came round back to normal colour and he was crying and then within the same breath stopped again and was lifeless once more. I performed CPR again but it just wasn’t enough, we needed oxygen.
"The ambulance arrived and he was still having episodes of not breathing for long periods of time. He was put on oxygen and rushed to A&E.”
Dakota added: “Whilst in A&E they realised he needed to be sedated and put on a ventilator so he could stop working so hard to catch his breath.”
Dakota shared that although Marley is still breathing ‘a little too fast’, he has made an ‘amazing improvement’.
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She now wants to enforce change and make sure all parents know how to help their little ones. You can sign up for Dakota's petition here.
Aisha Nozari