Vital treatment is being enhanced in the special care baby units in Bradford and Airedale thanks to the appeal by the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Coun Tony Miller, which has already raised £10,000. Reporters Sarah Walsh and Mike Waites found out just what it will mean both for one family with special reasons to fund raise for the appeal and for services at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

FIVE hundred babies are treated each year in the neonatal unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

Most spend just a few days there while they are monitored and fed after being born prematurely while others might have had difficult births or developed chest infections.

Much of the time and effort of highly-trained staff in the unit goes into providing vital intensive care for very premature or severely-ill youngsters whose hold on life hangs by a thread.

Six of the 28 cots in the unit are for those one or two in 100 babies who demand round-the-clock care, often spending month after month gradually gaining strength there.

Babies born after only 24 weeks gestation now survive thanks to improvements in technology but a close eye has to be kept on such tiny youngsters who weigh less than 2lb at birth prompting the need for the latest in hi-tech equipment.

Already huge efforts are made by the Baby Unit Regional Parents' Society which raises thousands of pounds each year for extra equipment as well as offering help and support to families.

Now staff in the unit and the charity hope a major step forward in diagnostic care can be achieved thanks to the Lord Mayor of Bradford's Appeal which aims to raise money for a £60,000 ultrasound scanner.

The machine will replace existing equipment which is now five years old and can analyse blood flows, in particular to give specialists a better picture of babies' tiny hearts.

The scanner will end journeys to Leeds General Infirmary for often seriously-ill youngsters where similar technology is already available.

Consultant neonatal paediatrician Dr Chris Day said 15 years ago most pre-term youngsters of 28 weeks would not have lived.

Now nine out of ten can expect to go home thanks to improved technology which is vital as youngsters with more and more complex problems survive following gestation of as little as 24 weeks.

Very premature babies typically have a number of problems including difficulties breathing because of underdeveloped lungs and need help from ventilators. They are also vulnerable to bleeding into the brain.

The scanner, hopefully in place next year, will end journeys to Leeds and mean quicker diagnoses particularly for children with heart problems, detecting the tiniest details.

Dr Day said: "The scanner we have at the moment is okay but it is five years old and that technology has now moved on."

"Since then they have improved and are increasingly better able to pick up very small abnormalities.

"With the latest ones you can also pick up where the blood is flowing which is important particularly when you are looking at the heart.

"The scanner will help us decide if treatment is needed and reduce the number of trips they need to make.''

Consultant radiologist Dr Leeanne Elliott said the newer scanning equipment was better for looking at heads as well as hearts.

"The blood flow is one of the important factors we look at and we can't do that with the machine we have.

"It will enable us to get a more detailed picture of what is happening and enable us to make a more rapid diagnosis."

New scanner will mean little Ryan's fight wasn't in vain

When the new ultrasound scanner is installed in Bradford's special care baby unit, it will bear a plaque in memory of little Ryan Mitchell.

Baby Ryan, like his twin sister Abbie, spent his first months clinging to life in an intensive care cot in the neonatal unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

The pair were born over three months' premature to parents Michaela and Chris Mitchell, last September. But while Abbie is now a bouncing toddler playing happily on the living-room floor of the family's Wilsden home with her three-year-old brother Lewis, Ryan died, aged five months, in February. For such a tiny baby he made a huge impact on his family, friends and staff at the unit - and his parents have thrown their weight behind the Lord Mayor's Appeal "so that his life will not have been in vain."

Mrs Mitchell went into labour just 27 weeks into her pregnancy. When the twins were delivered they were eight or nine inches long. Abbie weighed 2lb 3oz and Ryan, 2lb 2oz. Their tiny fists were smaller than their Dad's thumbnail.

Blood tests revealed Ryan had Down's syndrome and heart problems too, meaning a trip to the Leeds General Infirmary for a heart scan. The stressful trip will no longer be needed once the BRI has its own £60,000 scanner.

After a hole in the heart was diagnosed Ryan had a delicate operation, and seemed to have turned a corner in January before taking a serious turn for the worse. By mid-February doctors had to reluctantly admit there was nothing more they could do. His ventilator was switched off, and he died in his mother's arms.

Michaela wrote in her diary "Today is the saddest day in my life."

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