This is the very short but extraordinary story. A proof that sometimes small ideas can make big differences. The ones that can save a life.
Published on 21 Oct 2015
How plastic bags are used to save the lives of premature babies
Pink, tiny and birdlike, doctors did not expect newborn Pixie Griffiths-Grant to survive longer than an hour.
Delivered three months premature by Caesarean section, she was lighter than half a bag of sugar and smaller than her mother’s hand.
As she was rushed to intensive care, her parents faced the devastating prospect she may not make it.
But doctors saved her life by immediately bundling her into put her into a Tesco sandwich bag, which kept her warm and mimicked the conditions of her mother’s womb.
After overcoming infections, operations, and blood transfusions, Pixie, now five months old, is at home with her family, and is thriving.
Pixie’s mother Sharon Grant, 37, said: ‘As soon as she was born, they gave her a little hat and put her straight into the bag to keep her body temperature up.
‘After that they wrapped her in bubble wrap and got her straight to intensive care.
‘It was so random that they had her in the Tesco bag – it must have just been what the operating theatre had at the time.’
Mrs Grant, of Goonhavern, Cornwall, was forced to give birth three months early after scans revealed her unborn baby had stopped growing in the womb at just 20 weeks.
The first-time mother, who runs Floral Fancies florist in Perranporth, Cornwall, said: ‘My placenta and umbilical cord weren’t feeding her properly.
‘I was in and out of hospital for eight weeks being scanned constantly to see if she had grown, but she put on about 20g in those eight weeks.
‘It was so scary having to get her checked all the time and I had all the doctors telling me all this bad news. It was awful.
‘They wanted to get her to a certain weight before they delivered her, but she wasn’t growing to that size.’
At about 6pm on May 11 – 28 weeks into her pregnancy – doctors told Mrs Grant that she needed to have her baby that day.
How plastic bags are used to save the lives of premature babies
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