Saima and Qais

My mentor recommended finding more personal stories of mothers and their premature babies and I found one that I really liked

Saima Parveen, 26, and her husband Mohammed, 35, live in Bradford. Their first baby, Qais, now two and a half, was born when Saima was 25 weeks pregnant. At first Saima’s pregnancy was going very well until she reached her 18 and 20 weeks of pregnancy when she found out that she had been bleeding. For Saima “It was very frightening, and the doctors couldn't find a cause.” They gave her a scan, and could only reveal the sex of the baby – it was going to be boy. Then, at 24 weeks, she bled again. She was rushed to the hospital and was there for three days, having steroid injections to make sure the baby's lungs were healthy enough to breathe if he was born.  They had to put Qais in a ventilator because he couldn’t breathe on his own. Qais weighed one pound and one ounce when he was born, but now he’s a healthy baby boy who is feisty yet sociable. Saima explains that Qais can’t walk yet because of his developmental delay but he is still a young healthy toddler!