Siblings' walking challenge for baby sister

Parents Elizabeth Lambert and Shaine Kirby had to travel Leeds where Paighton was getting treatment

Two girls are taking on a five-mile walking challenge in support of their baby sister.

Siblings Lexi, 10, and Erin, nine, from Durham, will be raising awareness of biliary atresia, a condition which their sister Paighton was diagnosed with.

The rare disease affects newborn babies and causes blockage of the bile ducts, with fluid build-up damaging the liver.

Paighton had to undergo several surgeries in Leeds, but is now doing well at home.

Mum Elizabeth Lambert said: "It was a really worrying time, having our baby daughter go through all these procedures and surgeries, miles away from home in a city that we didn’t know well at all."

Paighton was first taken to the University Hospital of North Durham with suspected prolonged jaundice when she was seven weeks old.

She was diagnosed with biliary atresia and was transferred to Leeds Children’s Hospital as she needed specialist medical attention.

Baby Paighton is now doing well at home

Over the next nine weeks Paighton underwent several operations.

Each time she needed treatment in Leeds her parents were supported by charity The Sick Children’s Trust and stayed at its Home from Home Eckersley House free of charge.

Lexi and Erin's walk this month will aim to raise funds for the charity, with seven of their friends and family also joining them.

Ms Lambert added Paighton was doing "much better now".

"She’s doing pretty much everything you’d expect a nearly nine-month-old baby to be doing and we’re just so happy to be together as a family at home again," she said.