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Festive joy as Jessica beats meningitis

Katie Hopton
5/12/2006

PROUD mother Sherry Hurst is looking forward to enjoying a magical family Christmas after her new-born daughter fought back from the brink of death.

Jessica was diagnosed with group B streptococcal meningitis when she was just five weeks old. For a heartbreaking few days it was touch and go.

There were early fears she could have suffered serious brain damage or hearing problems.

She was treated on the high dependency unit at Rochdale Infirmary and even after being allowed home, to nearby Turner Street, had to return to hospital every day for antibiotics.

Two weeks after she was diagnosed doctors gave her the all-clear and said she had pulled through without any lasting problems.

Jessica, who is now five months old, has also battled back from a lung infection last month and has been diagnosed with eczema. She is being tested to find out if she has asthma.

But despite a difficult start in life Sherry, aged 25, says her daughter, who has a 23-month-old sister Isabelle, is fighting fit and a happy baby.

She said: "On the day she was diagnosed with meningitis Jessica was so weak, she was like a little rag doll. They found small purple spots on her stomach. She couldn't hold her arms up and her eyes were rolling back in her head.

"My partner Andrew and I both stayed with on her first night in hospital because we didn't know if she would survive.

"Doctors told us she was a very poorly little girl. They said the first night was touch and go."

It is believed that Sherry was unwittingly a carrier of the infection, which is potentially fatal to babies and it was passed to Jessica during her birth.

She has now been told that if she wants another baby she will have to take a course of antibiotics to ensure that the child is not at risk.

She said: "I didn't know that this could happen. And even if I had been warned I might not have thought anything of it because I had a normal delivery with my eldest daughter and she has never been ill."

A spokesman for the Rochdale Infirmary said: "The national guidance does not recommend routine screening for group B streptococcal meningitis in expectant mothers. If patients are showing symptoms they will be tested and treated accordingly."

• THE Meningitis Research Foundation is raising awareness of the symptoms of meningitis and septicaemia - the blood poisoning form of the disease. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, headache, dislike of light and neck stiffness. Symptoms in babies include tense or bulging soft spot on their head, blotchy skin getting paler or blue, refusing to feed, a stiff body or floppy and lifeless. Also check for spots on the body. The Foundation's free helpline is on 080 8800 3344 and it's website is at www.meningitis.org .