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downsmail.co.uk Henry Cooper’s fight for life


A BATTLING little boy by the name of Henry Cooper has defied all the odds to bring joy to his parents, who are now raising funds for the hospital which saved his life. Henry – still weighing a mere 5lb


5oz at almost five months old – has faced a tougher fight than his boxer namesake ever did, surviving more than a dozen blood transfusions, col- lapsed lungs and a life-threatening blood disease. He is still on a constant supply of oxygen, while his lungs recover fromweeks of living on a ventilator. For his parents, it has been the


most terrifying roller-coaster ride, during which they thought they would lose him on more than one occasion. The couple have no idea why Nickiwent into early labour. Henrywas born at Pembury Hos-


pital 17 weeks prematurely, on De- cember 27, along with his twin Archie. Each of the boys weighed just 1lb 2oz, making themamongthe tiniest tots ever to be born in Britain. With two crash teams on hand


and more than 20 doctors and nurses in the room,mumNicki Cooperwas warned: “It will be a miracle if the babies survive. It will be a miracle if they survive the birth, a miracle if they survive the transfer to the spe- cial care baby unit and a miracle if they survive intensive care. That’s a lot of miracles.” Incredibly, both boys came into


the world kicking – but, barely big- ger than the palm of dad Kevin’s hand, theywere clearly very poorly. The twins were transferred by


Kent’s only special neonatal ambu- lance to the Oliver Fisher Special Care Baby Unit at Medway Mar- itime Hospital, where, sadly, Archie lost his fight for life the following day.


Kevin and Nicki Cooper with baby Henry However, Henry battled on under


the watchful eye of the specialist team, eventually coming home to Downswood the day before his mumNicki’s birthday, on April 18. During his 16 weeks in hospital, Henry endured a vast array of med-


ical treatments, including ventila- tion, various types of breathing sup- port, X-rays and 12 blood transfusions. He fought off a series of infections and Nicki said: “His strength and resilience has been nothing short of incredible. It was a


A story of miracle babies


AS well as setting up a Just Giving page, Nicki has created a website – miraclebabies.co.uk – to tell the story of Henry and Archie and to offer comfort and support to other families who might be in a similar situation. The website has attractedmore than 1,200


visitors – fromas far away as China, Australia and New Zealand. She said: “We were naively confident at the


start, but after Archie died, it came home to us what a long way there was still to go.” Henry was a week old before his eyes opened


and Nicki was at his bedside for 12 hours a day. She was finally able to hold him at four weeks old. However, he then developed sepsis, a potentially life-threatening blood disease, and his lung collapsed. At 10 weeks old Henry still only weighed 1kg


but he was able to leave intensive care for the high dependency unit and at 13 weeks, the family felt it was safe to finally go on a shopping trip to kit out the nursery for his homecoming.


34 Maidstone South June 2016 Nicki said: “We can’t really thank the amazing


team at the Oliver Fisher Unit enough for ensuring we brought home a healthy, happy little boy at the end our journey with them. “It was quite emotional saying goodbye to all


the wonderful staff on the unit, but very exciting to be coming home after such a long journey.” To read more about Henry’s journey, visit www.miraclebabies.co.uk. To donate, visit www.justgiving.com/ CooperFundraising


Henry, above, finally comes home, and at the age of five months old weighed 5lb 5oz. Left, Henry shortly after he was born


real roller-coaster journey, but we cannot praise the unit enough for the care given during our time there.” Although the NHS pays for med-


ication and staffing at the Oliver Fisher Unit, all the highly-spe- cialised and sophisticated equip- ment is funded by donations. The unit cares for about 1,000 sick


and premature babies each year and Nicki and her family have decided to organise fund-raising activities to help the unit. The first will be a 5km run at Capstone Park, Gillingham, onAugust 28. Running alongside Nicki will be


her mum Sharon Terry, Kevin’s mum Jeanette Cooper, from Forest Hill, Maidstone, Henry’s auntie Elayne Fleming and cousins Faith, Paige and Summah, from Medway, along with many more friends. Schoolteacher Nicki set an initial


target of £1,000 and is already well over halfway there. However, now that Kevin’s employers and col- leagues at cloud service company Carrenza, in London, have agreed to make the unit the works’ charity, they plan to set the target higher. Nicki said: “We were fortunate


that Pembury is one of the hospitals which fights to save babies born at 23 weeks; for many, 24 weeks is the cut-off point. But without the round- the-clock care and support from the Oliver Fisher Unit, things could have turned out very differently. “We lost Archie, which is very sad,


but neither twin should really have survived, so our glass is definitely half full.”


Jane Shotliff


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