Cancer-stricken mum Heidi Loughlin's charity appeal makes £12k

Ally Louise weighed just 2lb 5oz when she was born last week

A charity appeal set up by a cancer-stricken mother whose baby daughter died at the weekend has raised 60 times its original target.

Heidi Loughlin, 32, was 13 weeks pregnant with her third child when she discovered she had breast cancer.

Despite delaying treatment to give her unborn baby the best chance, her daughter died days after being born.

A webpage set up in October to raise £200 for Cots for Tots has now received pledges of more than £12,000.

The Metropolitan Police officer, from Portishead, north Somerset, was given the option of terminating the pregnancy so she could begin intensive chemotherapy.

She decided instead to keep her baby and begin a less aggressive form of treatment.

But on 11 December, after being told she had to bring her treatment and the birth forward, Ally Louise Smith was born by C-section.

Doctors discovered Ms Loughlin's cancer in September after she noticed a rash on her breast while feeding her baby son Tait

In a poem dedicated to her eight-day-old daughter, Ms Loughlin revealed her grief on her blog.

"Yesterday afternoon our hearts broke in two. For we had to say goodbye to you," she wrote.

She added "the pain in my body and heart and my soul - feels it will consume me and leave me un-whole".

On the Just Giving page, set up by Ms Loughlin in October, nearly £1,200 was pledged over the weekend for the Bristol charity Cots for Tots.