Chris Jarman
Chris and Catherine - for Oscar
Fundraising for University College London Hospitals Charity UK
Story
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We had never heard of PPROM before it happened to us, which is probably the case for a lot of parents. PPROM stands for pre-term premature rupture of membranes and is where the waters break at an early stage in pregnancy. The amniotic fluid is critical for a baby’s lung development, particularly between weeks 16-23.
In our case the rupture happened at 17 weeks and we lost our baby boy Oscar at 21 + 3 weeks. The loss is completely devastating and something you never imagine you will have to face.
Little Heartbeats is a charity which supports parents going though PPROM and provides support packs to help explain the diagnosis and what can be done. They are an invaluable resource to families.
They are also raising funds, in conjunction with UCLH, to research into PPROM pregnancies and how they can try to repair the membranes after the rupture in the hope that in the future this won’t be so much of an issue and more babies will be able to survive.
The Membrane Research
Your donation will directly support our current research programme, which is:
- Developing tests to improve prediction of premature births (£50 per sample)
- Analysing the levels of bacteria in urine (£75 per sample)
- Examining blood proteins to predict the outcome for women with fetal growth problems (£150 per sample)
- Developing new drug and stem cell treatments that could heal the amniotic membrane when it ruptures early (£200 per sample)
- Testing the response of the amniotic membrane to repetitive stretching to find out why they rupture early (£500 per sample)
- Testing new drugs to help small babies grow better in the womb (£1000 per experiment)
- Each of these studies involves carrying out tests on 50 to 100 women.
- More information on this research can be found on our website here: PPROM Research | pprom-one (little-heartbeats.org.uk)