A cancer patient who had to choose between receiving life-saving treatment for herself and the health of her unborn child is at last celebrating the birth of her new son.

Stephanie Papworth is one of only a few women with breast cancer ever to be given chemotherapy in Bradford while expecting a baby.

The 33-year-old, who already had a nine-year-old daughter and a son aged 15, said the decision about what to do had been all hers.

Gabriel was born at 34 weeks, weighing in at 4lbs 13oz. After a spell in intensive care he is now healthy and at home.

Stephanie’s ordeal began when she found a lump in her breast when she was seven weeks pregnant.

“I’d been to my GP who at first said painful, lumpy breasts in pregnancy didn’t bother her but I just knew something wasn’t right,” she said.

Stephanie insisted on being referred and, to speed up the process, which could have taken two weeks, she went private and three days later had a biopsy. Less than a week later she received the diagnosis that an aggressive form of cancer was spreading from her breast to her lymph nodes.

She went to an NHS consultant at Bradford Royal Infirmary and had the tumour in her breast and all her lymph nodes removed.

“My options what to do next were limited and complicated by my pregnancy,” said Stephanie, who lives in Hunsworth, near Cleckheaton.

“They hadn’t treated many pregnant women before and had no definite idea or guarantees what effects the chemo could have on the baby.

“It was down to me. At every stage of treatment and every procedure I had after the diagnosis I was told I could miscarry. It was horrific.”

After surgery to remove the cancer, Stephanie was told she could either have the baby at 28 weeks and then start treatment or have the first half of the chemotherapy, then stop, have the baby then start again.

“It was a Catch 22 situation,” she said.

Research on the internet found that a pregnant woman was being given chemotherapy at Christie Hospital in Manchester. “I made a phone call myself to the oncologist treating her,” said Stephanie. “I didn’t want to lose my baby but I had my life and Maisie and Jacob to think of. I had to make the right decision.”

Stephanie decided to go ahead with the chemotherapy and at 34 weeks was induced. But her Gabriel’s lungs failed and he was rushed in to intensive care.

“He stopped breathing. I couldn’t believe after all we’d been through that it was happening, that I could lose him now,” said Stephanie. “The guilt I had over having the chemo was terrible but he proved to be a little fighter and pulled through.” Tests later showed that Gabriel had suffered no effects from the chemotherapy.

Stephanie has more chemotherapy at BRI before taking a break then starting radiotherapy at the new cancer wing at St James’s Hospital in Leeds. “After that it’s routine scans. As far as the doctors are concerned they’ve got the cancer and they got it early,” she said.

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