Ciara I Curran

PPROM Research in memory of Sinead

Fundraising for University College London Hospitals Charity UK
£8,438
raised of £50,000 target
In memory of Sinead Speakman
We fund equipment, services and research to make a difference to patient care.

Story

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page in memory of my baby daughter Sinead, I founded the non profit organisation  Little Heartbeats and while trying to stay pregnant I read about life saving procedure to plug the waters, sadly this was not a procedure that would have saved my baby :( 

  • After founding Little Heartbeats I read this article, 

    Premature birth: Stem cell patch could save thousands of pregnancies by repairing foetal membrane | Daily Mail Online

    after raising thousands for other baby  research charities my heart was telling me it needed to be  into raising awareness of PPROM and finding an intervention for PPROM, which gave me hope for the future that I could keep my promise to my first born baby Sinead, who I lost though birthing. 
  • I am also the voice of our families at these membrane research meetings and I owe to every single parent who goes through PPROM, Regardless of outcomes because a PPROM pregnancy is the unknown and this would mean mums could go through pregnancy knowing there was an intervention which would build up the fluids and keep enough fluid around the baby which would give babies like my Sinead a better chance of survival 
  • Birthing a stillborn baby and not knowing that your baby is on the wrong side of viability and not knowing that medical staff can not intervene with any interventions which is quite frankly painful, I have never cried so much in my entire life and hearing the healthy babies while mine lay dead while the doctor yanked out my placenta and not feeling like I could not hold my child. Because I was too scared to hold her straight after birth in case she had cried, as i was told by the doctor rushing in and out they would not help her, I felt helpless! I felt powerless and I felt I let my baby girl down. I felt so empty, I constantly have flashbacks of that day, it will never leave me. I therefore owe it to  Sinead in her memory and for our all mums dealing with PPROM in the future for them to have this intervention 
  • Dr Tina Chowdbury and Professor Anna David and their team of researchers are working VERY on a pioneering research to reseal the membranes. I have never met such passionate caring professionals, even through COVID, they are working extremely hard towards this goal.  We owe it to all the babies gone to soon, to all those babies who fought so hard to live. We it owe it to this research team to get them the funds to secure this intervention into helping mums whose waters break prior to 37 weeks especially those prior 24 weeks
The Membrane Research 

  1. Your donation will directly support our current research programme, which is:
  2. Developing tests to improve prediction of premature births (£50 per sample)
  3. Analysing the levels of bacteria in urine (£75 per sample)
  4. Examining blood proteins to predict the outcome for women with fetal growth problems (£150 per sample)
  5. Developing new drug and stem cell treatments that could heal the amniotic membrane when it ruptures early (£200 per sample)
  6. Testing the response of the amniotic membrane to repetitive stretching to find out why they rupture early (£500 per sample)
  7. Testing new drugs to help small babies grow better in the womb (£1000 per experiment)
  8. Each of these studies involves carrying out tests on 50 to 100 women.
  9. more information on this research can be found on our website here: PPROM Research | pprom-one (little-heartbeats.org.uk)
  10. Read the latest here and watch our video why this is important to me 

    New bioengineering approach to fix fetal membranes = PPROM RESEARCH (little-heartbeats.org.uk)
     
More information on PPROM visit Little Heartbeats 

Little Heartbeats | PPROM | Waters breaking - preterm birth (little-heartbeats.org.uk)

Listen to our song here and watch the video of families impacted by PPROM: 
https://youtu.be/Qe-SlKaZnL8

I thank everyone who spares a little for our future families to help save the lives of more babies, if this intervention had of been here 10 years, Maybe, just maybe I have a healthy 10 year old 

So lets do this, and get our goals on targets, 


join our team here: and help us get to our goals 

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About the charity

We're the official charity supporting patients, staff and research at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust. We focus on four main areas. Supporting patient care Training and developing staff Environment and equipment Advancing research.

Donation summary

Total raised
£8,437.93
+ £207.50 Gift Aid
Online donations
£8,437.93
Offline donations
£0.00

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