One Born Every Minute To Show Newborn Baby Tragedy

One Born Every Minute To Show Newborn Baby Tragedy

A heartbroken mum and dad are to share the devastation of losing their six-day-old son with millions of television viewers this week.

Hayley Jackson and Pete Heseltine agreed to appear on Channel 4 documentary One Born Every Minute to raise awareness of baby Kaiden's illness, a rare condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, which makes it nearly impossible to breathe unaided.

Doctors in Leeds battled to save the tiny baby before deciding to turn off his life support machine, in July last year.

Hayley, 27, said: "It was heartbreaking. We were by Kaiden's side the whole time. It was very soul destroying."

The parents were first told something was wrong at Kaiden's routine 20-week pregnancy scan, when doctors said the baby's heart and lungs were not in the right place and told Hayley to consider having an abortion.

But the prospect of having her child induced was too much to contemplate and the couple decided to carry on with the pregnancy.

Husband Pete, 25, told the documentary of the couple's soul-destroying loss and said they would try for more children.

They were told their son would have to be born at Leeds General Infirmary so he could receive specialist treatment.

It was then that Channel 4 approached the couple and asked if they could follow Kaiden's progress.

Hayley said: "They knew from the start it could go one way or the other. Through the whole thing we tried to remain positive. I did not want to look at what could happen. I just tried to black it out."

Pete said: "It was very upsetting at the time but I had to be strong for Hayley. It was a bit weird having the cameras there because it was not the best experience for them to be filming but we wanted to raise awareness of the condition and get the message out there."

More than 9,000 people have signed a petition to support charity CDH UK, asking MPs for more funding to research the condition.

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