You can read real life stories from parents who have experienced having a premature or sick baby at first hand. Fairy has chosen two stories for you to look at, you can read the full versions on the BLISS website.

Emma's story
Emma's baby, Jonathon was born at 32 weeks by an emergency Caesarean after he developed a serious infection passed to him during pregnancy.

Emma says: "He was also lying across my womb which made the operation complicated and difficult. Despite managing to breathe on his own for a short period, he
was very poorly.

The infections which had passed to Jonathan had a very bad effect on me and I went into severe shock and
needed intensive care for a few days. I wasn't able to see Jonathon properly for a while although I was encouraged to touch him before he was taken to the NICU."

Visit the BLISS website to continue reading Emma's story.

Robert's story
Three months after experiencing the pain and loss of a miscarriage, Robert and his wife, Annabelle, discovered they were expecting another baby.

Robert says: "Annabelle was almost ten weeks pregnant when we realised. Our eight-year-old daughter was
thrilled but worried that this baby wouldn't make it either. We did our best to reassure her.

Annabelle had just gone for her routine 20 week scan.
She was feeling good, and with Christmas around the corner she visibly started to relax and enjoy the pregnancy. However, she soon began to experience some swelling and headaches. On the 26th of December, the midwife discovered Annabelle's blood pressure had gone through the roof. She was taken into Cheltenham General Hospital for monitoring. My parent's-in-law were visiting from Spain and, luckily, they were able to look after our daughter while I went to work by day and visited
Annabelle in hospital every night.

Annabelle's health was getting worse and we were told
that she would not be able to carry the baby to term, but they wanted to try and get her past 28 weeks. We'd got
to 23 weeks - five weeks to go."

Visit the BLISS website to continue reading Robert's story.